Atonement
by Feriku
Summary: Three years after the events of SH4, Henry is still plagued by nightmares. Hoping to take his mind off of the unpleasant memories, he responds to a mysterious letter asking for his help, and finds himself caught up in a dangerous quest in Silent Hill.
1. Chapter 1: A Letter from a Friend

Author's Note: _Welcome everybody, to my Silent Hill 4 sequel, _Atonement_. This story is a little odd when it comes to genres, because when I started writing it, it was supposed to be a comedy. This may still be evident in the first few chapters. However, as it went on, I realized that a lot of serious things were going to happen, and it stopped being a comedy. It's hard to be lighthearted once you're stuck in Silent Hill with all the monsters and everything. As such, it's rated M for violence and horror.  
As you know, of course, I don't own Silent Hill or its characters, or anything like that, so I'd like to extend thanks to Konami for their wonderful creations that I have spent the past few months writing and dreaming about. I'd also like to thank the television shows that inspired a few of the early, lighter parts. And finally, I'd like to take this time to thank my friends, especially those who helped with some of the monsters and puzzles. Thank you!  
__Now, without futher ado: the story. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Comments and reviews are always appreciated._

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**Silent Hill 4 Sequel**

**Atonement**

Chapter 1: A Letter from a Friend

_She was screaming._

_ The screams filled his ears until he thought he must surely go mad, but the blood was worse._

_ Her blood._

_ It was everywhere._

_ She fell to the floor, and he looked with horror upon the bruised and bloodied face of Eileen Galvin_.

xXx

"Eileen!"

Henry Townshend sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding. After a couple of seconds, he collapsed back against his pillows. He ran his hands through his hair. It had been another one of _those_ nightmares.

He couldn't remember the details, mercifully, but that didn't calm his worry about Eileen Galvin. It was three years after working together in the hellish Otherworlds that had claimed his apartment, and they were very close. The thought of anyone hurting her tore Henry apart.

He stared up at the ceiling, unsuccessfully trying to fall back asleep. There were intermittent periods of time when he didn't have nightmares, but he couldn't quite seem to escape the memories entirely. If Eileen's injuries didn't haunt his dreams, then Walter Sullivan did, or those terrible moments when _things_ were coming out of his apartment walls to kill him.

Sometimes he just dreamed of the alternate apartment, Room 302 of the past, and all of those tiny, futile candles.

Groaning, he looked at the clock. It was just after five o'clock—close enough to a time he might get up in the morning, and it wasn't as though he was going to get any more sleep anyway, not with thoughts like that in his head.

A cold shower rooted him more firmly in reality, and after dressing in a white shirt and blue jeans, he went to the kitchen feeling much better. He still took a quick glance at the door as he walked by, however. As usual, there were no chains. It didn't matter that he was living in a different apartment building. He suspected he could be living in a house on the other side of the globe, and he would still check the door every morning, just in case.

This apartment was not very different in size from the old one, although the arrangement of rooms was different and it seemed slightly nicer. The kitchen was simple, with a countertop running along the length of the walls, and a small table in the center where he ate.

He got a bowl and filled it with cereal, and as he sat down to eat, he slowly pushed any lingering horrific thoughts away. Once he was done, he would go downstairs and get his mail. It was unlikely there would be anything interesting, but every now and then a good magazine came. After that, he'd only have to find a way to occupy himself until it was time to meet Eileen for lunch.

That thought made him smile. He did like being with her. Their lunch dates came frequently, now, although he still felt a little shy each time. She was so very beautiful and always so kind.

Having effectively distracted himself, he took far longer eating breakfast than he had expected to. By the time he was dressed and ready to go, it was certainly a reasonable time to be up and about.

He walked all the way from his fifth floor apartment to the mailboxes on the first floor, despite realizing that he probably wouldn't have gotten anything at all. There weren't any bills that were due to arrive, and he had never gotten any magazines he enjoyed enough to subscribe to.

Surprisingly, however, a single envelope sat in his mailbox. He picked it up and made his way back to his apartment, opening it as he went.

"Hello, Henry," Eileen greeted him, as he returned.

"Hello," he replied, looking up with a smile.

She was coming out of her apartment, probably to go and get her own mail. They were neighbors again in this apartment building, which was another thing that made him very happy. She was dressed casually today, in dark slacks and a blue blouse. He watched her for a moment, noticing the lovely way in which her dark hair framed her face, and then he remembered what he was doing.

She watched him curiously as he unfolded the letter and read it.

_Dear Henry Townshend,_

_ Hello. I need your help. You're the only one I can trust.  
__ Meet me at the South Ashfield Café as soon as you can.  
__ Please._

_ Most sincerely,  
__ An old friend_

"What the hell?" he muttered, reading it again.

"What is it?" Eileen asked.

He passed her the letter, while looking over the envelope. There was no return address in the corner. In fact, not only was it missing, but also, the writer had decided to put the stamp in that corner.

Henry hadn't made a lot of friends throughout the years, always having been somewhat of a loner. He was having enough trouble trying to imagine an old friend who would be writing to him at all, let alone one unfamiliar with the post office.

"Are you going to go?" Eileen asked, returning the letter to him.

He hesitated. "I'm not sure I _have_ any old friends," he finally admitted.

She laughed disbelievingly. "I bet a lot of people think better of you than you believe."

He shrugged, looking at the letter again. "South Ashfield Café?" he read. "I never even heard of it."

"You need to get out of the apartment more, Henry," she said, but with a smile. "I know where it is. I can take you there, if you like."

"Do you think I should go?" he asked.

"I think it would do you good."

Slightly bothered by that, but happy enough to have an excuse to spend additional time with Eileen, Henry shoved the letter in his pocket and smiled. "All right, then."

They walked downstairs and out of the apartment buildings in silence, but after they had been outside for a little while, Henry cleared his throat.

"You said it would do me good. Do you think I need to get out more?"

She laughed. "I don't know if I would put it quite like that."

"What then?"

He knew he wasn't a very social person. He never had been; it just wasn't his nature. He enjoyed spending time indoors, keeping to himself, and generally not bothering anyone. When he did go out, it was usually to admire his surroundings and photograph them. Other than Eileen, people rarely came into it. He had never considered it a problem, and he hadn't thought she did, either.

Fortunately, that wasn't what she meant. Unfortunately, it raised a point he wanted to think about even less.

"I heard you scream this morning, Henry."

"Oh," he said, feeling his face redden. "It was just a bad dream."

"About Walter Sullivan?"

They had walked past the many buildings near their apartments before he finally nodded. It hadn't occurred to him that she could hear him through the wall. He began to walk faster out of anxiety. How many nightmares had she heard him awaken from?

He had never told her about his nightmares, and although he had often wondered if she suffered from them, too, he had never planned to ask. Her ordeal had been much worse than his. He couldn't stand the thought of reviving those memories for her in any way.

Eileen put her hand on his arm, squeezing it gently as they walked. "If you ever want to talk about what happened three years ago…"

"I don't," he responded quickly.

She sighed. "You can't ignore the past, Henry. You need to accept it and move on." When he didn't answer, she said, "Try to enjoy yourself today, all right? Whoever this old friend of yours is, they're sure to take your mind off of what happened."

In light of the conversation, he didn't admit that the very thought of this meeting was making him nervous. What would he say? He had no idea who this person might be, and it would be very embarrassing if he couldn't remember the name of someone who considered him a friend.

"Henry, relax," she urged, seeming able to detect his worries. "This is a friend you're meeting, not some monster. Everything will be fine."

"This friend wants help with something."

"It's still better than dwelling on the past."

He couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he tried to convince himself of the truth of her words as they continued through the city. In a way, it was a relief, he realized. Worrying about something as simple as a social matter was nothing in comparison to those dreams. He began to breathe easier at last, just in time.

Eileen stopped walking in front of a small building that boldly announced itself as the South Ashfield Café, in neon letters.

"This is it," she said.

"Thank you," he sighed, "and, Eileen? I'm sorry."

She looked startled. "For what? I'm only worried about you."

_For waking you up with my nightmares and forcing you to remember Sullivan._

He held his tongue before he could say that and feel like an idiot. He shook his head. "Nothing. I'll see you later."

Henry peered through the glass door of the café, and finally, conscious that Eileen was watching him anxiously, he walked in.

It was a small place, with several little tables placed around the room. A wooden counter to the left of the door separated the café from the door leading to the kitchen, and one man, wearing an apron and nametag that said his name was Alf, stood behind the counter to take the customers' orders. The air was thick with the smell of coffee and cinnamon buns.

Henry glanced around. A few of the tables were occupied, but no one looked even remotely familiar. He stood there awkwardly for a few minutes, in case someone was going to notice him and wave him over. After nothing happened, he walked over to the counter.

"Err, excuse me," he said to the man called Alf, who nodded for him to continue. "I'm supposed to meet a friend here. My name is Henry Townshend. I don't suppose anyone has mentioned that they were waiting for me, have they?"

He expected not, but to his surprise, Alf raised his eyebrows and nodded curiously, saying, "Oh, so _you're_ his friend."

Henry's nervousness escalated. The man's tone was a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

"Which one?" he asked embarrassedly, glancing back at the customers again.

"He's not here anymore. He'll come back," he assured him quickly, raising a hand. "He showed up as soon as we opened, and asked if Henry Townshend had come yet. He was going to wait for you, but he was scaring my customers away. I had a word with him, and he left, but he's been checking in every fifteen minutes or so."

Henry took a deep breath. It was starting to seem like a better idea to burn the letter and pretend it hadn't arrived. "He was…scaring your customers away?"

Alf laughed. "Oh, I don't think he meant to. He just has a way with people, or rather, he doesn't. He seemed nervous about seeing you, actually."

"It's been many years," he explained, wishing he knew more than that. He began mentally going through all of the classmates he could remember.

"Ah, I see. Well, order something, and sit down! He'll be along soon enough."

"I'll have a coffee," Henry decided. He paused. The cinnamon buns smelled good, and having some more food might calm his nerves. "I'll have a cinnamon bun, too." He held up his hand. "Actually, two of each." Whether he remembered this friend or not, it wasn't a good idea to start out by being impolite.

He paid and waited patiently for his order to come. He eventually ruled out most of the people he had known from high school, keeping only a few names for consideration. Had any of them considered him a good enough friend to seek him out after all this time?

"Here you are, Mr. Townshend."

"Oh, thank you."

Carefully balancing everything, he moved to an empty table and set it down. He sat in one of the chairs, pulling his cinnamon bun and coffee to a spot in front of him where he could stare at it.

He had a plan. He could pretend to be interested in his meal until the friend approached him, so his lack of recognition wouldn't be obvious. He hoped the voice would be enough.

He continued to stare at the table, occasionally taking a sip of his coffee, and thinking about people he had met in the years after high school. He had quite a tidy little list of possibilities, when he heard the café door open.

Focusing on the cinnamon bun, he breathed carefully as he heard footsteps coming in his direction. This would be incredibly embarrassing if he didn't recognize the person at all. Eileen was right. He needed some time to just enjoy himself. This could easily become a disaster, and he didn't want that.

_Focus, Henry,_ he warned himself. _Focus on the voice._

A hand clapped on his shoulder. "Henry. It's been a long time."

Henry's heart leaped into his throat. He recognized the voice. He did, but…that was impossible. That voice had haunted his nightmares for the past three years. Eileen was more right than even she knew. He had been dwelling on things far more than was healthy.

_Think! It's not _his_ voice, so whose is it?_

As the figure moved around from behind him to sit in the other chair, he tried desperately to replace the face that had sprung up in his mind. He couldn't, however, and he hoped his momentary alarm hadn't shown.

Readying an apology in case he couldn't even recognize his friend upon seeing him, Henry looked up at last, into a familiar pair of green eyes.

He went completely still, frozen in shock.

Walter Sullivan smiled.


	2. Chapter 2: Supercosmic Second Chance

Chapter 2: Super-cosmic Second Chance

Henry jumped up so quickly that the chair fell over, earning him startled looks from nearly all of the other customers. He ignored them. He was certain he was awake, or he'd have already decided this was a nightmare. For one thing, he was fairly sure none of his nightmares would spend time staring at a cinnamon bun with as much delight as this one was.

"Did you order this for me? I'm stunned."

_Stunned_ didn't even come close to how Henry was feeling. He felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach. Or, as though he had been struck by lightning. Possibly both.

The delusion, if that's what it was, was an incredibly lifelike one, and it still appeared lost in the allure of the cinnamon bun.

"Th-thank you, Henry…"

Several possible answers came into Henry's mind, but they all faded almost immediately. Struck by lightning and then punched in the stomach. This could not be happening. He wanted to bolt for the door, but he was afraid he might faint if he tried to move quickly.

Fainting seemed like a very bad idea.

He swayed in place for some time, before Walter finally looked up again, smiling past the locks of dirty-blonde hair falling in his face. "You can sit down, you know."

With nothing else to do and people still staring at him, Henry righted his fallen chair and sat. He was not quite sure what was going on. Walter was acting friendly, almost like a normal person, and that was probably very bad. He had to keep in mind that for all his insanity, Sullivan was intelligent.

He was also _dead_, and that was one of the major problems.

Admittedly, he had been dead when he tried to kill them three years ago, but that was a different sort of dead. That awful ceremony of his had allowed him to keep murdering people, as a spirit ruling over his Otherworlds. Henry had defeated him; he had watched him die. He had coped with all of the trauma and nightmares because he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Walter Sullivan was very dead, and gone forever.

Forever was supposed to be longer than three years.

"But you _died_," Henry finally managed to croak out.

Walter paused in the middle of tearing off a piece of the cinnamon bun. "Yes, I know. How have you been?"

Henry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The situation was quickly leaving any sort of sanity behind. The man who had ruthlessly murdered almost all of his twenty-one intended victims before being defeated was not dead. He was sitting in a café, attempting casual conversation.

"I _was_ fine," he replied, surprised at how steady his voice was. This couldn't be happening. Oh _God_, this couldn't be happening.

"You see, when I died—"

Henry wondered if he had missed part of the conversation.

"—I was really, truly dead, and…well, I can't tell you what happened. Those sorts of things are secret, and I'd really rather not talk about it. You might say I've been given a super-cosmic second chance!"

"I didn't know that was possible," he responded weakly.

"I've got a whole new outlook on life now. I learned a lot about myself," he added rather quietly. "Do you think I'm here to kill you?"

Henry opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

"I'm not, you know. How is Miss Galvin?"

Of all the things he could have said, somehow the only one that made it out was, "Stop going from topic to topic like that!"

Walter looked genuinely bewildered.

Henry put his head in his hands. This couldn't possibly be happening. He sensed he was starting to accept the situation, and he really didn't want to do that. Everything else seemed too normal, too far from the surreal to be a nightmare.

The silence stretched on for a while. He had half a hope that when he looked up again, the other man would simply be gone.

He looked up. Walter was smiling at him again. On the other hand, perhaps he was just baring his teeth. It was such an alarming sight that Henry jumped up and knocked his chair over again.

The customers, who had temporarily forgotten him, looked over again. Their expressions ranged from amused to concerned.

"What's wrong with him?" he heard someone mutter.

_This man is a psychotic serial killer!_ he wanted to shout, but he managed to restrain himself. They wouldn't believe him, and besides, he couldn't have cared less about what they thought. There were much more important things to worry about right now, such as not being murdered. His heart felt as though it were trying to fight its way out of his chest. "All right," he hissed, taking deep breaths to try to calm down, "that's enough. Stop smiling like that. Stop trying to make conversation. And for God's sake, stop acting like we're old buddies! Just tell me why you called me here."

Walter's face darkened—he could only assume it was with anger—and he lowered his gaze, saying finally, "I need help."

"From _me_?"

"It had to be someone who knew about me. That meant it was either you or Eileen Galvin."

Hearing him say her name again brought into Henry's mind the terrible memory of her bloodied, battered body after Sullivan's attack on her. His fear and anger spiked even higher.

"You leave her alone! Whatever you intend to do, leave Eileen out of it! Stay away from her!"

Walter looked up sharply, holding up his hands. "You don't quite understand what I—"

"I understand that you are a dangerous lunatic, and if you hurt Eileen, I will hunt you down and make what you did to your victims look like—"

"Henry, you're being irrational!"

"I'm irrational? You think you're related to my old apartment, and _I'm_ irrational?"

There was a tap on his arm. Henry glanced over and saw Alf, looking at him with a strained smile on his face.

"I should have expected this," Alf admitted, nodding to himself. "You just seemed so calm and _normal_ that I said to myself, 'No, he won't scare away any of my customers.'"

Looking around, Henry realized that the café had cleared out quite a bit while he had been shouting. Only one other table was still occupied, by a very nervous-looking couple. He flushed red, both in embarrassment and anger.

Alf continued, "Now, I don't like to pry into my customers' business. I couldn't care less what you two have been talking about. The people who come here, though, they are not used to that sort of thing. When people run out of here in fear, they're going to tell other people. Then those people will be less likely to come here in the future. I do not like that. Now, I don't care if the two of _you_ leave…but my remaining customers had better not leave."

Henry began to apologize, but then he realized that Walter had nodded, gotten up, and was now standing over the remaining couple. It sounded as though he were explaining to them that they shouldn't leave. If they had looked nervous before, they now looked positively terrified.

It was time to get out of there.

With an apologetic nod to Alf, Henry made a beeline for the door. Without looking back to see if Walter had noticed, he took off across the street, mind racing.

Going back to the apartments was out of the question. That might lead _him_ there and put Eileen in danger. He thought he might go to the police for help, and he considered just exactly what he would say.

_I'm in danger from Walter Sullivan, the serial killer. Yes, I know he died. He died twice, in fact. He got better._

Henry grimaced. It even sounded stupid to him.

No, the law would be no help here. It was all up to him. That being said, he didn't like the idea of vigilante justice, either. Already, he regretted his outburst in the café. He wasn't a violent person; he wasn't even a particularly _loud_ person. Despite everything he knew, his conscience was putting him in a position very similar to that of the police. He couldn't feel right about killing someone who was just walking around harmlessly, even if that person had deserved it the last time he was alive.

_The last time he was alive…oh Lord…_

If Sullivan attacked anyone, he'd do it then. If he even _thought_ about touching Eileen, that might be good enough. With any luck, he'd already given up on whatever he was planning, and would go away.

Henry skidded to a halt as he realized the horrible mistake he had made. Sullivan had sent him that letter, which meant he knew exactly where he lived. He might be crazy enough to chase him through the streets of Ashfield, but he might just as easily go back and wait for him at the apartments. Henry could just picture him, leaning against the wall as the door of the apartment next door opened…

He imagined Eileen seeing him, and screaming as he noticed her…

He turned and began racing in the opposite direction, retracing his steps. He'd make his way back to the café. Maybe Sullivan was still there. If not, he'd take the quickest way back to the apartments, and hopefully catch him on the way. Failing at that, he could still get back home before anything bad happened.

If he had to act… He thought quickly. He still had several of the weapons he had used three years previously, and he also had learned the benefit of adapting ordinary objects into makeshift weapons. He had a sudden horrifying image of himself pelting Sullivan with doorknobs while he tried to get into his room to retrieve a gun.

Not that any of this planning would be any good if he didn't move _faster_. He hadn't even reached the café yet, and he was starting to feel tired.

_I really need to start getting more sleep_, he told himself, forcing his legs to work harder. It was starting to seem like he was always running. He ran in his nightmares, he ran _from_ his nightmares, and now he was spending his waking moments running around, too. At least at night, he eventually woke up.

He tried to remind himself that he hadn't really been in any clear danger at the café, but he quickly pushed those thoughts down. Thinking like that was a good way to get killed.

Yet he was so _tired_; he was starting to think, in a dizzy sort of way, that he might as well just go with the flow.

He continued to think through things as he ran, barely noticing the people he was passing by until he crashed right into one of them. Yelling an apology, he stumbled around them and began to run again, until the person shouted.

"Henry!"

He whirled around. "Walter!"

"I was looking for you."

"I was looking for _you._"

"_You_ were looking for _me_?"

Henry stood there feeling dazed, so giddy with relief that he began chuckling to himself. Everything was fine; Walter was right here. He wasn't at the apartments. Eileen was fine. Walter was _here_, where he could be watched.

Although currently, Walter was watching _him_, rather warily.

"It's all right," Henry gasped, holding up a hand. "I haven't gone mad or anything." How ironic it was, that he was defending his sanity to the crazy serial killer. He burst out laughing again.

"You're making me feel incredibly sane."

Henry composed himself. "Let's not talk here in the middle of the street." He waited until they had moved to the nearest sidewalk, and then he smiled calmly and asked, "Why did you want to meet with me, 'old friend'?"

Walter looked quite pleased with this turn of events, although still a little wary. "There's something I need to do, but it's too dangerous to do alone. I need your help."

"With what, exactly?"

He sighed. "I was walking down the street the other day, and a pay phone rang. No one was around, so I answered it. It was for me. It was my mother."

"…Room 302?" Henry asked cautiously.

Walter's expression turned murderous. "Would you _forget _about that for a minute?"

"Forgotten," he agreed quickly. The situation seemed safe enough, but he didn't want to test the limits of this fragile peace.

"It was my _real _mother. She said she wanted to meet me." He was smiling again.

"Why do you need me to come along?"

"It could be an exceedingly dangerous journey," he replied grimly.

Henry was starting to feel dizzy from the mood whiplash. "Walter," he began carefully, hoping to get him to go away without being blunt about it, "why don't you forget this and go on a nice vacation, somewhere far away, where you can just leave the past behind you?"

"_My mother_ wants to meet me. Everything I did, I did to be with her, safe from the world. You know that."

_And you thought that meant Room 302,_ he thought, but he didn't say it out loud this time. _Now he wants to meet his biological mother. Good God, this is Sullivan telling me this; he'll probably murder her for one twisted reason or another._

He began walking again, halfheartedly thinking the man might just give up. Unfortunately, he just followed suit. They walked aimlessly for a solid ten minutes of silence before Henry abruptly stopped, losing patience. This was insane; he had no idea how to get rid of him! The vigilante justice idea continued to be tempting, but something about killing a man who had asked for your help in meeting his mother seemed horribly wrong.

Yet he had done enough to deserve it, and more, and there was something equally abhorrent in letting him walk around free to kill more people.

Except that he had already been killed, and now he claimed he was being given some sort of extra chance at redemption. _A super-cosmic second chance_ was how he had phrased it, and that didn't sound like the sort of thing you should cut short.

When he stopped, Henry found himself demanding, "What the hell is a 'super-cosmic second chance'?"

Walter looked surprised, and then he smiled. He looked up at the sky. "When I died, I deserved complete ruin. I'll admit it. I had committed horrible crimes, I had mocked death in a ritual of the Order, I had become lord of my own ghastly worlds—these hands were stained forever with innocent blood, and not a single soul could have spoken out in my defense. Even I, exposed to the truth of what I was, would not have defended myself."

He faltered somewhat, but then he continued, getting progressively louder. "Yet, somehow, I had an advocate. Why? I do not know. Surely others have suffered as I suffered. Surely others have shared my motivations.

"Whatever the reason was, mercy was offered. There could be a second chance—not to be reborn, exactly, but to simply _return_, mind and memories intact, to try again where I had always failed before. I must seek my redemption."

He began to inexplicably raise his arms into the air, and Henry hissed, "Stop that! We're on a public sidewalk! People are _looking_!"

Rather than lowering his arms, Walter smiled around at everyone in a way that he undoubtedly thought was pleasant, but which sent several of them running, and concluded, "The only condition for forgiveness is repentance!" He lowered his arms. "That is what I was told, and so I believe it, although I do not know what it means. I would say I repented from the moment I saw the truth, but then I would not need this second chance to earn forgiveness. I will find my repentance."

Henry nodded slowly. He almost wished he hadn't asked. If he had been confused before about what to do with Walter, it was nothing compared to how he felt now. He certainly sounded sincere, but everything he had ever done may have been motivated by _sincere_ beliefs.

Killing someone who was actively seeking redemption… He felt guilty just considering it. Unless Sullivan somehow worked killing people into his repentance, which was not out of the realm of possibility, in which case it would be an entirely different matter. By then, though, he would have acted too late. Henry ground his teeth in frustration.

He was getting the unfortunate sense of the conclusion his thoughts were heading towards. Somehow, Walter Sullivan had become his responsibility again. If he broke all contact with him now, and people died because of it, he would never be able to shake the feeling that he shared in the guilt.

He'd come up with a better plan later. He had to. Until then, however, all he could do was keep an eye on him.

"All right," he sighed, suppressing a grimace. "I'll go with you to meet your mother."

"I knew you'd understand! It might be dangerous, though, so you'll want to be prepared. We'll go to your apartment and get everything we need."

Henry ran after Walter, who had taken off down the sidewalk at an incredible speed. He did not intend for there to be any "_we_" involved in a trip to the apartment. Keeping an eye on him did not include letting him get anywhere remotely near Eileen.

"Wait!" he shouted. "Of course I'll need to get some things, but why make two trips? I mean, you'll need to get things, too, so—"

"From where?" Walter looked politely puzzled.

His next intended line about splitting up and meeting when they had everything died on his lips. "From…wherever you've been staying…"

The puzzled look turned to something considerably unhappier, and Henry felt distinctly uncomfortable.

"Never mind," he said quickly. "We'll… Okay, I guess we'll both go to my apartment. Just don't _bother_ anyone. Just…just follow me and do what I say. It's for the best."

"I'm sure you'd know; you are the Receiver of Wisdom, after all." He hurriedly added, "That was just a joke, and it was in very poor taste. Forget I said it."

Henry smiled weakly. He felt as though he were going to be sick.


	3. Chapter 3: Almost Brothers

_Note: Well, I'm glad people have been enjoying the story far. I hope you still like it when it gets more serious. xD Oh, and look, I've found a semi-relevant fun quote to start us off with this week!_

_"It's hard to cap someone who's just standing there looking pathetic, even when you know you'll regret it one day if you don't."-Imperial Commando: 501st_

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Chapter 3: Almost Brothers

As they walked through Ashfield, Henry eventually came to the conclusion that the only person he had to worry about seeing them was Eileen. Most people wouldn't recognize Walter, and even if they thought they did, it would be likely discounted as a coincidence. After all, to the general populace, Walter Sullivan had been dead for over a decade already.

Eileen was another matter. She _would_ recognize him, and Henry didn't know what that would do to her. It was having a bad enough effect on him, and he hadn't been brought as close to the brink of death as she had.

He remembered again the state she had been in when he finally made it through that apartment door, and he struggled to force away the thought to just kill him and end it now. He couldn't do that. Not yet, at least.

But he would not allow those memories to be forced upon Eileen.

"Stop," he told Walter shortly, when they neared the apartment building.

"Why?"

"Just do it." Henry left him on the sidewalk and scouted ahead, checking out the lobby carefully. Eileen was nowhere in sight. "All right, you can come in!"

Walter walked through the doors just as the elevator began to open. Henry's heart skipped a beat, and he shoved the potted palm tree that sat in the corner in front of him.

It was only a couple whom Henry vaguely recognized—he suspected they knew him as _that guy down the hall_—and they frowned as they passed him and the palm tree.

Coughing to hide his embarrassment, he returned the pot to its proper location. He suddenly remembered whom he was dealing with and his reasons for trying to hide him, and he glanced up at Walter, expecting to see his own impending doom.

To his surprised relief, Walter looked faintly amused. "Is there going to be any more of this insanity?"

There was.

The elevator doors had closed by the time they got there, so Henry told Walter to stand out of sight while he checked out the elevator. It was empty.

"All right!" he called.

When no one came, he sighed and went after him. Walter was around the corner, at the far wall, studying the directory that was posted there.

Henry tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around quickly, looking guilty.

"Coming?"

"Yes."

Of course, the elevators were closed again by that point, but he decided to take the risk. Prepared to push Walter behind furniture if necessary, Henry pressed the button again.

"I'm starting to suspect you think I'm a basilisk."

The elevator was empty. Henry stepped in and gritted his teeth. "I'm not even going to ask what you mean by that."

Walter explained anyway. "A basilisk—it's a sort of mythical lizard that can kill people just by looking at them. You're acting as though I am one." He got in the elevator and pressed the button for floor five.

"Were you always this sarcast—_how did you know what floor we were going to?_"

"I needed to know your apartment to send you the letter, Henry. The room number gave away the floor, I'm afraid."

Henry glared at him, embarrassed that such a little thing had caused him alarm. It would have helped if Walter were smirking, but he had such a sad look on his face that Henry almost felt ashamed. Almost. He had good cause to suspect him of sinister plans, after all.

He glared straight ahead as the elevator went up, muttering, "Why me? Why did you _have_ to ask me for help?"

Bitter sarcasm was certainly back in the tone of Walter's reply. "Well, if it bothers you _that_ much, I _could_ just go and ask Miss Galv—"

"I'll kill you if I have to." The words came out before Henry quite knew what he was saying. He put a hand over his mouth in surprise. Had he always been this reactionary?

"You've changed. You used to be so quiet, so calm, so…unruffled by all of the madness surrounding you."

"I've been under a lot of stress," Henry growled, disliking his own thoughts voiced like that.

"I liked you better when you were calm."

"I liked _you_ better when you were _dead._"

"That hurt."

Henry glanced over, taken aback by the complete lack of emotion in that final statement. Walter was staring ahead with no expression on his face whatsoever.

_As if it's not bad enough that I'm not acting like myself, he can't even settle on one way to act._

Both things were rather worrisome.

When the doors opened to the fifth floor, he quickly stepped out and looked around. The coast was clear. He took a few steps down the hall and realized he was alone.

"You can come out of the elevator now," he called.

Walter stepped into the hall, still with that blank expression.

"Are you all right?"

"Perfectly fine, Henry." He smiled. It was very obviously a forced smile. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," he laughed nervously, starting down the hallway.

_He is a dangerous lunatic. He may know the truth now, but he's still Walter Sullivan. Whatever his intentions are, he's very unstable._

Henry sighed. That seemed almost hypocritical. He wasn't feeling too stable himself.

They reached his apartment, and he started to unlock the door. Walter, on the other hand, didn't stop moving. He continued drifting towards the next apartment—Eileen's apartment.

Henry grabbed the back of his coat and pulled him back, not letting go until he had the door open. He pushed Walter in and abruptly realized that he wasn't afraid of him.

He had ordered him around, threatened him, and pushed potted plants in front of him. He had pushed _him_, and had generally been enough of an aggravation that anyone would have yelled, if not punched him in the face. This being Sullivan, he was surprised to be in one piece. Yet his reactions had ranged from amusement to complete apathy.

"What is wrong with you?" he wondered. To his horror, he realized that he had said it out loud.

"I'm trying hard to act as though I'm anyone else but me. I'm just a normal person on the street, with an abandoned and forgotten past, and at least one friend."

Henry winced, thinking about this _normal person_ scaring away customers at the café without actively trying to do anything wrong. "Maybe you just need practice," he suggested awkwardly. Not that he was in any position to offer social advice.

Walter made a noise that might have been a disbelieving laugh. Then, the façade was back, and he said smoothly, "We'll almost certainly need weapons and supplies. I would be happy to pack the weapons, if you show me where you keep them."

"I'm sure you would." Henry opened the closet and pulled out a backpack. He frowned at it critically. It wasn't the greatest choice, but it would have to do. "I will take care of the weapons myself, thank you."

Some of the weapons from three years ago he had discarded almost immediately. The rusty axe, for example, he had burned at once. Keeping many of the others was a pragmatic decision; in case he ever ended up in danger again, he wouldn't want to have to search for a weapon.

Somehow, he hadn't expected that future danger would be voluntarily going on a journey with Walter Sullivan.

He picked up both the handgun and the revolver from the shelf on which he had stored them, and put them in the bag, as well as the stacks of ammunition he had accumulated.

"I meant it innocently, Henry. I want to help."

Henry sighed and dug out another bag. Turning, he held it out. "All right. If you want to help, you can pack some food. And health drinks!" he called, as Walter took it and walked to the refrigerator.

He turned his attention back to the closet. He wasn't entirely sure what kind of danger this trip would entail. It was probably best to take everything. He picked up the pickaxe of despair from the corner with difficulty and shoved it in the bag, followed by the carefully sheathed knife and the stun gun. After a moment's consideration, he added the can of bug spray that he kept on the top shelf. He pulled the spade out of the closet and studied it.

"Where are we going, anyway?" he asked, trying to work out how to carry the spade in a pack that was only half its length.

"Silent Hill."

"_Silent Hill?_" Henry glanced at his bag full of weapons and then up at the pictures he had taken during visits to the small resort town, years ago. "I've been to Silent Hill. It was quite nice."

"I expect we won't get such a warm reception this time."

Henry frowned. He had to correct his own thoughts—Silent Hill had affected him more recently than that, now hadn't it? Silent Hill, resort town, but also, Silent Hill, home of the Order. Home of the Wish House Orphanage and the Water Prison. Home of the start of the madness.

And now that he thought about it… "I've heard some dark rumors about Silent Hill in recent years."

"Be prepared for anything. I don't entirely know which rumors are true, but I know it is going to be very dangerous. That's why I didn't want to go alone."

"And your mother wants to meet you there?" Henry asked skeptically.

"Yes."

_And do you even know if you hate her or love her?_ he wondered, but he managed not to say that out loud. Instead, he sighed, "And I've actually agreed to go with you. I must be insane."

"I knew you'd help me."

Henry looked at him sharply. Was he actually admitting to forcing him into this responsibility? Had he _known_ that Henry would feel an obligation to keep an eye on him? Perhaps he really had done it on purpose.

Walter put another health drink in the pack and continued, "After all, you lived in Room 302 for a fairly long time."

On the other hand, perhaps he meant something entirely different.

"Just think about it for a minute, Henry. If I had been right about my mother, we would nearly be related. We're almost brothers!"

For a second, Henry found himself seeing the logic there, and then he came to his senses. "No we are _not_ 'almost brothers'!"

Walter sighed and finished his packing in silence.

Henry found some more healing items—he remembered the usefulness of first aid kits and ampoules—and turned them over to be packed away with the health drinks. He stuck the spade in his backpack, with the handle sticking out of the top, and slung it across his back. He wished it was a little less conspicuous, but it would have to do.

"All right, I'm ready to go. Let's get this over with."

"There's just…one more thing."

"What is it?" he asked, taken by surprise when he looked at him. Of all things, Walter looked _nervous_.

"I've noticed you…going out of your way to keep from being seen with me. It's all right; I expect it. I don't care to be seen by most of the people here—only one other. All of these people—and I only want you to let me see _one_."

Henry narrowed his eyes.

Walter coughed and continued hurriedly, "And since the directory said her apartment is right next door, maybe we could—"

"No."

"Just for a min—"

"_No_."

"I swear I won't h—"

"No, no, n-o, _no_, and in fact, I want you to promise me something."

Walter made a grumbling noise.

"I'm serious," Henry said, thinking through what he was going to say. "I'll come with you, I'll help you like you asked, but when this is over, you go somewhere far, far away from here."

"Very well, Henry. After this, I won't be a problem in your life anymore."

_So you'll just let the world face him after all? As long as he can't hurt you or Eileen, you no longer care? Or are you hoping that only you will make it out of Silent Hill? Are you _planning_ that only you will make it out of Silent Hill?_

Henry forced his questioning thoughts aside. "Promise."

"I do promise."

"Let's go, then."

He opened the door and stepped into the hall, and almost walked right into Eileen, who was heading towards her apartment, having apparently gotten her mail at last. He quickly slammed the door shut behind him. Ignoring the startled _"Ow!"_ from the other side, he leaned against it and tried to act nonchalant. His heart was performing acrobatics.

Eileen had stopped and was giving him a most peculiar look. "Henry…is that a…shovel…in your backpack?"

"Actually, it's a spade."

"Why do you have a spade in your backpack?"

He hesitated, mind racing. "I, ah, was going to do some gardening."

"With your friend?"

"Yes, with my friend. We're going to go and do some gardening. Make a day of it. Catch up on old times."

"I'm glad you're having a good time," she said with a smile. "See, I told you it would be fine. Where is your friend now?"

"Where is my friend now…? Well…" As Henry tried to think up an answer that would sound reasonable, and yet still keep the "friend" somewhere far enough away that Eileen couldn't meet him, a couple of loud knocks came from the other side of the door.

"Is someone in your apartment?" Eileen asked, looking bewildered.

"No! That was, uh, me." He kicked his foot against the door, smiling earnestly. "See?"

She nodded slowly, frowning at him. "I suppose you're on your way to meet up with your friend, then. May I come?"

"No!"

She hesitated and then asked, "Is your friend…another woman?"

"_No!_" This was becoming quite the mess, although a part of him was delighted that she would care about such a thing. "No, Eileen, it's only that I'm not going to meet him right now. I thought I'd stick around here a while, first."

"Oh. Well, since we won't be able to have lunch together today…may I come in for a while?" She nodded towards the apartment door.

"No!"

She looked surprised and a little hurt.

"Eileen, it has nothing to do with you, I promise."

Walter began knocking on the door again, and Henry hastily started kicking the door in time with his knocks.

"Henry, you're acting very strangely…"

"I am not," he protested, trying a reassuring smile.

She looked down at his foot. "What _are_ you doing?"

"There's a song stuck in my head," he improvised. "I can't help but tap out the beat."

She laughed, although she seemed uncertain. "All right, I can believe that, I guess." She paused, looking a little worried. "Would you…like to come over to my apartment?"

"I'm not sure I can do that right now," he admitted, glancing back at his door.

Eileen followed his gaze. "Henry…when I was a little girl, there was a time when a boy I knew got a dog. He wasn't allowed to have a dog, so he kept him hidden. And every time someone would come near the place the dog was hidden in, he'd stand in front of the door and not let anyone go in, and he wouldn't leave, either. He always would claim nothing was going on, and it was very obvious that something was."

He laughed nervously. "I swear I am not hiding a dog in there."

"But you _are_ hiding _something_ in there?"

"N-no."

She looked at him curiously. "Henry, you can trust me—you know that!"

"There's absolutely, positively nothing hidden in there!"

"Then I can go in?"

"No."

She sighed, and he grimaced. He was starting to feel bad about this. He was always more than delighted to let her into his apartment. On top of that, he probably was coming across as a lunatic today.

"I can spare a minute or two in your apartment, I think," he said, stepping away from the door. He shot a glare at the peephole, just in case. Walter would just have to wait until he was ready to leave.

Eileen glanced at him and then reached out casually towards the door, which he belatedly realized he hadn't even locked. She was watching him carefully, as though gauging his reaction.

"Wait!" he shouted, desperately jumping to something he remembered from a television show. "That song I told you about—the one I heard on the radio! Eileen, you've got to hear it! It goes something like this… 'Don't go in there, yeah, yeah, yeah! There's nothing in there, yeah, yeah, yeah!'"

She stared at him, and he saw extreme worry in her eyes, just before she pulled open the door and took a step past him.

He winced and ran after her. "Eileen, I can explain ev—" He stopped. Walter was nowhere in sight.

"I was starting to think you were in some sort of trouble," Eileen admitted, turning towards him. "I'm really worried about you, Henry."

He laughed, edging around the room and surreptitiously glancing behind the furniture. "No need to worry about me…"

"I'm sorry. I just…" Her eyes widened as he stuck his head into the bathroom and then came back out to look under the bed. "Um, Henry…what are you doing?"

"Lost something," he whispered. "It was part of a magic trick."

"A…magic trick?"

"Yes, my friend, apparently, is something of a magician." Where _was_ he? For that matter, why had he decided to help, when he could have just stood there and smiled when the door opened?

Eileen bit her lip and looked away. Her voice was filled with cautious concern. "Henry…have you considered talking to anyone about the things bothering you?"

"I'm fine," he insisted, stopping by the closet and frowning around the room.

"You haven't been yourself today."

"I said that, too," the closet whispered. "I think you're cracking up, Henry."

He jumped. After checking to make sure that Eileen was still facing away from him, he peered through the slats in the closet door. Walter stared back. Henry sighed in relief. He may have lost a serial killer in his apartment, but now he had found him again; that was progress. He could focus on the more immediate problem at hand.

"It's just that I worry for you," he said, his voice betraying more of his distress about Eileen's welfare than he had intended. "I just don't want anything to happen to you."

She turned and walked closer, smiling. "Henry…that's so sweet of you… But what could possibly happen?" Raising her eyebrows, she leaned casually against the closet door.

"Don't stand there, Eileen," he pleaded, considerably more calmly than he felt, considering that he thought his blood pressure may have broken a record. He reached out and gently pulled her away from the closet. "Stand anywhere but there."

Looking faintly worried again, she reached up and touched his face. "Try to let the past go. You're hurting yourself. When you're with your friend today, just relax. Enjoy your gardening. Talk about good times. Anything—think about _anything_ but Walter Sullivan."

He just managed to force down the hysterical laugh that tried to escape. "That might be harder than you think." He hesitated. "I'm sorry if I've seemed rude today. I just…need a little time alone."

"I understand."

She certainly did seem to understand, at least to some degree, and after walking her safely to her own apartment, Henry wished he really were going to spend time alone.

With a sigh, he returned to his apartment. Walter was standing there, with a haunted, almost anguished look on his face. It vanished as soon as he noticed Henry, to be replaced again by that carefully blank expression.

Henry cleared his throat. "Hey, uh, thanks for hiding while she was here. I didn't expect you to help me," he admitted.

"We're almost brothers, remember?"

He sighed uncomfortably, wondering why he was now being reminded more of the little boy who had wandered the Otherworlds as a manifestation of Walter's younger self. He could see him now, keeping the statue at the Wish House between them, and watching him timidly. He pushed it out of his mind. "Come on, let's go and get this over with."

Silent Hill was waiting.


	4. Chapter 4: To Silent Hill

Chapter 4: To Silent Hill

They made it out of the apartments without incident, although Henry had one eye on the furniture and potted plants at all times. Once outside, he once again thought dismally about how he had no other option than to go through with this mad quest to meet Walter's mother.

_He fully expects us to be attacked there, and that's the place she picks._

It just didn't seem like the normal way to go about it. Presumably she was living somewhere, so why not meet there? And she had managed to dial a random payphone that just happened to be the one her son was walking by? The whole thing seemed rather dubious. That was why Henry still had custody over all the weapons.

He turned in the direction that would lead to the subway and suppressed a sigh. He wished he had a car. He had been planning to get one, but somehow, he never had gotten around to it.

Perhaps Eileen was right about him dwelling on the past too much, although he could hardly stop _now_, of all times. Still, the past three years had taken quite a toll on his mind, he was beginning to realize. She thought he ought to talk to someone about it, but who? Did she mean herself?

That, he realized even more glumly, was probably something he should have done a long time ago. Talking about the incident might have helped both of them; it occurred to him that for all he avoided the topic so as not to stir up her memories, perhaps she had _wanted_ to talk about it.

"Car rental."

With his train of thought broken, Henry glanced at Walter with a frown. Car rental? Where had that come from?

Before he could ask, Walter was suddenly crossing the street.

Henry got over his surprise and ran after him. "Where are you going?"

"This way."

"Clearly. But the subway's _that_ way."

"And the car rental place is _this_ way."

"Since when are we renting a car?"

"Since I realized the other option was the subway."

"I would rather not rent a car."

"And I'm _definitely_ not going in that subway."

Henry gritted his teeth. "What's wrong with the subway?"

"Don't you have nightmares?"

"What do my nightmares have to do with anything?"

Walter stopped suddenly, in the middle of the road. "I first met Cynthia Velasquez in the subway station. Cynthia Velasquez was killed in the subway station."

Henry noticed the curious phrasing of that and wondered if there was anything to it, and then he brought his mind back to the most immediate matter at hand, which was that _yes_, he did have nightmares about that, now that he thought about it, and there was no way he was going near the subway with Walter Sullivan.

"Car rental place," he agreed.

They attracted quite a bit of attention as they walked through the streets of South Ashfield. From the whispers he overheard, he found out that the spade handle sticking out of his backpack was drawing people's eyes, and that once they dismissed the man with the spade and looked at his companion, they began to ask one another why that face seemed familiar.

"Great," he muttered. "Someone's going to drag out at thirteen-year-old wanted poster, and we'll be tied up for hours."

"They can't arrest someone for looking like a dead man! You, on the other hand, are carrying around a small arsenal."

However, they made it to the car rental building without incident, and once inside, Henry nervously made his way over to the man waiting. His nametag cheerfully announced that his name was Rich and he would be happy to help you.

"Good morning!" he greeted them, beaming.

"Err, good morning."

"May I help you gentlemen?"

"Rich," Walter commented. "I knew a man named Rich_ard_ once."

Rich glanced between them uncertainly. "Err…you did? Was he a friend of yours?"

Henry cleared his throat and tried to divert what looked like a disaster in the making. "We'd like to rent a car for the day."

"No, he wasn't," Walter answered. "He hated me. He always yelled at me. There were times I thought he was going to kill me."

"Oh, how terrible."

"It didn't end well."

"What happened?"

Henry raised his voice in an attempt to bring at least Rich's attention back to business, and hopefully drown out Walter. "Do you perhaps know where I can get a map, as well? I'm not sure I know the way to Silent Hill after all this time."

"—and so I killed him, actually—"

"_And maybe we could get some additional medical supplies, because I've heard some pretty bad things about Silent Hill lately!"_

"—number of amps, but it sure got the job—"

Henry gave up and kicked Walter instead. He stopped talking and glanced at the floor, looking faintly ashamed.

Rich looked like he was going to pass out.

Henry laughed nervously. "He, ah, doesn't get out much…doesn't know how to deal with people…please, um, ignore everything that he just said…"

Miraculously, instead of calling the police, Rich let him rent a car, sold him a pile of maps to and of Silent Hill, and directed him to the nearest drugstore for additional medical supplies. He also moved the furniture in front of the door once they had walked out.

"When we go into that drugstore, don't say anything. If someone asks you something, let me answer."

"Henry, I honestly didn't mean to do that; I mean, I feel really guilty about what I did to Braintree and all the other people."

"Just don't say _anything._"

They made it in and out of the drugstore safely, although the saleswoman commented on Henry's spade, and then they took a look at the car they had rented. It was small, blue, and looked as though it wanted to fall apart.

Henry looked at it, and looked back at the building. If Rich was still inside, it was impossible to tell, due to the amount of furniture blocking the doors and windows. He groaned.

"He's probably hoping it'll blow up on the way," he grumbled.

"Why would he do that?" Walter looked puzzled. "He seemed like a nice man."

"Just get in the car, Mr. Electric-Chair!"

Henry threw his backpack, spade and all, in the back seat. He ducked quickly as the second backpack followed, flying past where his head had been. He gave Walter a suspicious look, but he was getting into the passenger side as though nothing had happened. Maybe nothing had. Maybe he was just paranoid.

_Paranoid with good reason—it's Sullivan, after all!_

Resisting the urge to grumble, because grumbling was as atypical for him as yelling, which he had done enough of already, Henry got in and started the car with the keys Rich had given him. The noise the engine made as it started up was not promising. He shifted it into drive and pressed tentatively on the gas pedal. At first nothing happened, and then the car lurched into motion. By the time they made it onto the street, it had made sounds he had never heard from a car before.

"Well," Walter commented, "it certainly wouldn't do to have a working vehicle that could help us escape Silent Hill, now would it?"

Henry ignored him. He was afraid to take his concentration away from the car. Getting out of Ashfield was nerve-wracking, but the car settled down once it was on the open road. It still seemed shaky, but not quite as dangerous.

_It'll be a nice, safe ride to Silent Hill with Walter Sullivan._

The worrying thing was that he was starting to feel calm about the situation. He hadn't had much choice but to accept it, now. They were on their way.

The monotony of the ride was broken by Walter opening all of the windows, after which he turned on the radio. He then began fiddling with all of the other knobs and dials on the dashboard.

_Just ignore it, _Henry encouraged himself._ At least it's something harmless._

The radio wasn't even playing music. It was a news broadcast that was more static than news. It seemed designed to drive the listener insane.

_Ignore it…ignore it…_

The windshield wipers began going at their highest speed.

"Stop that!"

Walter turned everything off that he had turned on and gave him that unreassuringly creepy smile again. Henry responded with a stony look.

_I'll bet half of those blasted hauntings he inflicted my apartment with were just because he was bored!_

The landscape was average, and there were very few other cars on the road. He soon began to realize that if he had been driving by himself, it would have been an entirely uneventful trip. As it was, however…

He noticed his companion turn around and reach into the back seat to dig through one of the bags.

"What are you doing?"

"I was going to clean the handgun."

"The handgun is working perfectly fine as it is." After a moment in which he realized Walter wasn't going to listen to him, he reached over and took the handgun. He put it next to him and resumed driving.

A while later, he had to take the revolver as well. The stun gun followed, and although he felt a little silly for taking the bug spray away, he soon had that by him, too.

"I'm trying to be helpful," Walter insisted.

Henry decided not to comment.

After noticing him _helpfully_ examining the knife, however, he felt he had to say something. "Just stop."

"You don't trust me."

"You are entirely correct."

That was the end of the conversation, and the pickaxe and the spade remained safely in the bag. Complete silence took over for the remaining hours, which was almost as bothersome as everything else that had happened. There were, it seemed, individuals who could make silence feel horrifying sinister, and Walter was one of them.

At least he wasn't smiling constantly. As far as Henry could remember, Sullivan had never stopped smiling when he was on his murdering spree. This new range of emotions could actually be a good sign.

The fog-shrouded sign reading _Welcome to Silent Hill_ took all thoughts of good anythings out of his mind.

Right on cue, the car shook and shuddered to a stop. No amount of pressing on the gas pedal could do anything to change its mind. It didn't even have the decency to make a noise. The car, apparently, did not want the town to know it even existed.

Henry put his head in his hands. It had taken nearly half the day to get there, and the chances of getting out again didn't look good.

"It always works like this," Walter said. "Don't you read horror novels?"

He didn't even know what to say to that.

"Well, let's go. Mother's waiting."

Henry got out and retrieved the two backpacks from the backseat. He packed the weapons away again, except for the handgun, which he kept out. Slinging the backpack across his shoulders again, he reluctantly handed the other one to Walter.

"Don't I get a weapon?"

"No." It was bad enough that he had come with him to an apparently abandoned town. Arming him would be unbelievably stupid.

Walter nodded, but Henry noticed him clench his fist.

_Oh dear. This is going to get very bad, isn't it?_

Trying to ignore his misgivings, he tightened his grip on the handgun and joined him in walking forward, into the foggy town of Silent Hill.


	5. Chapter 5: Locked Doors

Chapter 5: Locked Doors

Walking along the fog-shrouded streets was very eerie. There was a sense of emptiness in the air that Henry hadn't experienced in three years. It might have been worse, this time—unlike the Otherworlds, Silent Hill still appeared to be a normal town. He could almost imagine that everyone had simply gotten up and left that morning, leaving only abandoned buildings to greet newcomers.

"Some say," Walter began, his voice sounding strange in the silence, "that the town is still here, inhabited. It's only that when certain people come here, they're on another plane."

Henry nodded. It sounded similar again to what had happened three years ago. Walter's victims had died in his world, but they were dead in the real world, too.

"It's not the Otherworld, though," Walter added. "From what I've heard, there are many different levels to this town."

"Why would we be on this one?"

"That, I don't know."

Henry thought about it, as they continued walking. It sounded bad. It may not have been an Otherworld, but that was still the closest comparison he could make. People who had ended up in Walter's Otherworlds were invariably victims. Did this make them victims of…the town itself?

Looking around, though, he found it hard to believe that there could be another Silent Hill where people were living normal lives at this exact moment. Everything seemed too real. Then again, the strange rumors he had heard about the town did occasionally overlap with times when he knew it was just a normal town.

A sudden screech in the distance made him jump. It sounded like some indefinable creature crying out in pain. It came a second time, even more haunting than before. Walter continued as though he hadn't heard it.

So, Henry continued on as well, trying to ignore the strange noises that reached his ears. Perhaps the town wasn't as abandoned as he had thought.

"Where are we going, exactly?" he finally asked, after they had walked for a while.

"She said she would meet me in Silent Hill, 'in the place where it began.' At least, I think that's what she said."

"In the place where _what_ began?"

"I've been trying to work that out myself." He paused. "I've been thinking it could be the Wish House."

Henry nodded slowly. That made sense, at least as much as anything else did. The Wish House orphanage had been where Walter was introduced to the teachings of the cult, was told that his mother was asleep in Ashfield, and was abused and brainwashed. It was certainly a place where things had begun for him.

They kept walking, while he wondered again about the _second chance_ that allowed Walter to be here. Was he being honest about that? If so, what did it do to a person to be suddenly, forcibly shown that they were evil? If their positions had been reversed, he wasn't sure he could live with the guilt.

They were forced to stop abruptly. The road ended just ahead of them. Henry could just see the other side, across the abyss that mysteriously blocked them. He took a step forward and frowned at it. He couldn't see the bottom; it was just a deep, dark chasm that couldn't be crossed. What had happened to this town?

"Well, we won't be going the direct way," Walter muttered, digging through his backpack for one of the maps. "Let's see…if we can cut through these apartments…"

Turning down another road led them to the apartments in question. He reached out and tried the first door to their left. It didn't budge. "Locked."

Henry took the map from him and frowned at it. Going through the apartments would work, but they could just as easily double back and circle around. He thought it was unlikely that all of the roads would be cut off.

He suggested the idea, and Walter nodded, although as they turned back, he said quietly, "I don't like this."

Henry gave him a questioning look.

"The town isn't letting us go the direct way. It _wants_ us to take a different path."

_He thinks the town is manipulating us?_ But he knew that he himself had been thinking that Silent Hill had picked them out as victims, so he didn't comment. Instead, as they retraced their steps, he pointed out, "It seems strange here, but at least it's qui—"

A clicking, shuffling noise came from the end of the street, and a long, spider-like leg came into view.

"—et…" he trailed off weakly.

The creature that scuttled into the street was unlike anything he had ever seen. It reminded him of a red, hideously overgrown spider, although it only had five legs. Three of the skeletal limbs jutted out from one side, with the remaining two on the other, giving it a lopsided gait.

As it started towards him, Henry remembered his handgun and fired. Although its central body appeared weak, it took three shots to fell it.

It collapsed with a horrible gurgle, and he took a closer look. The tips of its legs were strangely pointed, and they were black. While he had initially thought the creature itself was red, he was no longer sure. The body had no visible features, other than what appeared to be a diseased wound at the very top. The creature glistened slightly, and he realized in horror that the red color was a layer of fresh blood, trickling out of the wound and covering it.

"What the hell?" he whispered, stepping back quickly. He had encountered strange monsters before, and he should have expected the same here, but…

Clicking alerted him to the approach of more of them. The first appeared, and he noticed the motion of the trickling blood. As more appeared, scuttling behind it, Henry decided that cutting through the buildings was a good idea after all.

He jumped towards the nearest door, and saw Walter doing the same thing. He tried the doorknob, but it was locked. He glanced at the approaching creatures and moved onto the next door. Locked.

The two of them dashed from door to door, and Henry felt a sense of relief that he only had to check half of them. Locked. Locked. Locked.

A spindly leg hit the back of his head, and he spun around in alarm. He didn't take the time to aim—it was close enough that he didn't have to. He fired the handgun wildly, unloading it into the spidery thing until it fell.

"This would be a lot easier if I was armed!" Walter yelled.

Henry ignored him, hurrying to the next door. Locked. _Oh God, are they _all_ locked?_ The next one, to his shock, opened.

He stared at the door, hardly believing it. Then he snapped back to his senses and dove into the building, shouting, "Here!"

Walter was only a moment in coming, although one of the creatures leaped at him as he reached the doorway. It landed on him, and he stumbled. Making a disgusted noise, he tore it off and pushed away from it, slamming the door.

_You could have been rid of him, if you had closed the door_, a treacherous voice in Henry's mind chided him. _Don't be a hero to those who don't deserve it._

He shuddered, listening to the sounds of the creatures moving outside the door. That clicking shuffle was unnerving, and he had the sudden, horrifying image of those legs moving in a pincer motion, slicing up the monsters' prey. No, he wouldn't abandon anyone to monsters, even if he thought of it in time.

At least, he hoped he wouldn't.

Driving those thoughts away, he took a moment to reload his gun and then looked around at their surroundings. They had ended up in the apartments after all, and were in a dark corridor. The only light came from under the door, and it was disturbingly interrupted by dozens of moving legs.

A light shone suddenly from near the floor.

"Found a flashlight," Walter commented, lifting it up and shining it around. There wasn't much to see in the corridor. There was a directory and map across from the doors to the street, and then nothing until the apartment doors began at the corners.

Henry stepped forward to examine the map. "There's an exit at the south of the building that should be good. We'll just turn at the end of the corridor here, and walk until we reach it."

"Do you really think it will be that simple?" Without waiting for an answer, Walter hung the flashlight around his neck and started walking.

After hesitating for a moment, Henry grabbed the map, just in case they needed it. It didn't look like anyone else was here to miss it, and after those…_scuttlers_…chasing them in the street, he didn't want to get lost.

He hurried after Walter and the flashlight, and almost ran into him when he stopped suddenly. By the light, he could see that the ceiling had caved in partially, effectively blocking their path.

He held out the map, studying it for an alternate route. "If we go through these rooms here, we should be able to get around to the other side."

Walter nodded and tried the first apartment. Henry heard the unfortunately familiar noise of a locked door and sighed.

They had checked three more doors with no success when Walter said, "Didn't you pack a pickaxe?"

Henry blinked in surprise, and then took off his backpack. He reached into it and pulled out the pickaxe with difficulty. The word "Despair" caught his eye, matching the feeling it filled him with, as always.

He took a deep breath and then swung it over his head at the door. It hit the wood and bounced off, not even leaving a mark. He stumbled backwards and was forced to drop it. He stared at the door, shocked, and then put the pickaxe back in the bag.

They continued checking the doors, until finally one opened. A light on the wall flickered eerily. Inside, the apartment was in disarray, and the air was filled with crackling static from a radio sitting on the one upright table.

"According to your map, there's another door out of here," Walter said, stepping around the overturned furniture.

Henry walked over to the table, frowning at the radio. It seemed so strange that a radio would be on in the middle of this abandoned town. For that matter, it looked as though it were turned off, despite the static.

An inhuman screech sounded, and he turned in time to see a grotesque figure coming out of one of the other rooms. He raised his gun, but hesitated. It was far more humanoid than the Scuttlers. It was a sickening brown color, looking like it was decaying as it walked. It looked almost like two people, one wrapping chains around the other. Both heads were twisted to the side, mouths rigid as though trapped in screams. One pair of rotting hands was fused into the flaps of flesh that made up the chains, but the one being chained had its hands extended.

_Surrender_, it seemed to imply, shuffling towards him. _Join this imprisonment…_

He backed away in horror, unable to help imagining what it would be like to be bound in chains like that. You would be so vulnerable, open to all threats and danger…

A second screech rang out from somewhere in the apartment, and that snapped him out of his paralysis. Raising the handgun again, he fired twice at its head without it doing anything but slowing down.

_I need to conserve ammo_, he told himself, trying to avoid panic. He dropped the gun and pulled the spade from his backpack. It had better be worth the trouble it was carrying it.

His heart was hammering, but he forced himself to raise the spade and wait until the creature got closer. When it was only a few feet away from him, he slammed it against its neck as heard as he could.

The chained man creature screamed as blood spurted. He heard a strange clanging and twisting of metal from another room, and he could only hope it wasn't another monster coming after him. He swung the spade again as the creature lunged. It screamed a final time and fell, bleeding, onto the floor.

He stared at it, heart pounding. Similar death cries sounded from elsewhere in the apartment, and when they ceased, the radio quieted as well. He picked up the radio, frowning at it. Finally, he put it in his backpack. If it somehow indicated the presence of monsters, that could be quite useful.

He retrieved his handgun and hurried in the direction that he had heard the other monster. He found Walter standing with a long pipe in his hand. From the look of the wall, it had once been a part of the plumbing. A Chained Man lay dead at his feet.

Walter gave him an accusing look and then turned to the far wall. The door there led into another corridor, and he walked out.

Henry frowned, wondering what that was all about. Then it occurred to him to wonder how he would have felt if he had been unarmed when that thing had appeared.

_And I made sure he was unarmed._

He sighed. Allies or not, he wouldn't feel comfortable giving him a weapon. Still, although he was certain that Walter had no justification to feel betrayed, the backpack of weapons felt heavier as he walked out into the corridor.

They reached the north exit fairly quickly, but it was locked. The lock was distinctive, made of thick metal with an elaborate pattern carved around the keyhole.

"Hopefully we'll be able to find the key," Walter said, turning back without really looking at him. "This may take a while."

_Apologize,_ Henry told himself, but he couldn't quite bring himself to form the words. _Apologize to Sullivan? He killed eighteen people!_

So, instead, he consulted the map and began trying doors. The hallway in this area was dimly lit, but it was enough that he didn't have to depend on the flashlight. He found doors that were locked, doors that were jammed, and some that began to open only to be mysteriously blocked by something on the other side. For every room he could get into, there were at least three that he could not, and Walter was having similar luck.

Not that the rooms he _could_ get into were particularly wonderful. Henry took to readying his gun or spade before even trying the door, because there was often a monster waiting for him. The first Scuttler he encountered within the apartment building had nearly taken his head off before he recovered from his shock.

_I've got to get used to this kind of thing again._

Searching rooms and finding abandoned traces of the lives of their tenants reminded him eerily of Apartment World, the version of South Ashfield Heights that had existed in Walter's unreality. Back then, he had fought monsters and braved every sort of horror because it was what had to be done. Now, he wasn't sure what his goal even was.

Time began to blur into a gruesome sort of monotony, broken finally by a low, "Aha!" from the other end of the hall.

"You found the key?" he shouted hopefully.

"Haralda has it!"

He repeated that silently to himself a couple of times, in the hope that it would suddenly made sense. It didn't. He shook his head and went to find Walter.

He was in Room 110, standing over a dead Scuttler, and staring at the wall next to the door. In a reddish-brown color that looked uncomfortably like blood, "Haralda has the key" was written across it.

Henry stared at it, too. As nice as it was to think that they were closer to having the key, that was an extremely unhelpful message.

Pushed against the wall was a table, with a line of five boxes. They were nothing special, other than seeming so out of place in someone's apartment. Each was metal, dull gray, and covered with a hinged lid.

"Maybe Haralda lived here and kept the key in one of these boxes," he finally suggested.

"Could it be that easy?" Walter asked, walking over to the table and frowning at the boxes.

Henry looked around the rest of the room. There wasn't much else besides the usual overturned furniture, a photograph covered in dust, and a journal lying open on the ground. He bent down to look at it.

_"June 9  
__I can never catch them. They're taking my stuff, but I've never seen them. None of my traps have worked. I wonder if they're watching me…_

_"June 16  
__The police say I'm crazy, and that no one's been in my apartment. If it doesn't end soon, I'll have to take matters into my own hands._

_"June 18  
__Those thieves think they're pretty clever. Well, the joke's on them, this time. Let's see them steal my stuff now. The time for traps has passed. They'll try the wrong box, and then hah! Dead, dead, dead, just like they ought to be."_

"Don't touch that box!" Henry yelled in alarm.

Walter pulled his hand back from the first box. "Why not?"

"It might be rigged with some sort of death trap." He looked back at the journal on the ground, feeling no desire to read further. "The person who lived here…was a little crazy."

"A death trap?" Walter repeated, frowning at it. "Then how will we get the key?"

"I don't know. Let's just keep looking."

_You fool,_ he chided himself, as they conceded defeat on the first floor and climbed the stairs. _Did you have to shout? Would it have been so terrible if he had opened the box?_

He didn't have an answer for himself.

At the top of the stairs, there was a torn note lying on the ground. Henry picked it up.

_"Haralda took the key to the south exit again. I saw where she put it, and I know I have to let the others know. I'm so afraid, though. She's completely insane. I know what I'll do. I'll give my neighbors each a piece of the answer. She won't know where to put the blame, and she can't kill us all."_

"Keep an eye out for pieces of paper like this," he sighed.

It was slow going. It was darker up there, except for in the rooms, making the flashlight necessary again. Scuttlers and Chained Men hindered them, it seemed like most of the doors were locked, and even many of the rooms they could get into contained nothing more useful than a forgotten health drink or some packed-away ammunition. In addition, Henry still heard an occasional scream that seemed to come from nowhere but the walls.

One room contained nothing but a message scrawled on the wall, like the room with the boxes.

_"If you number the homes, the first is furthest from the door."_

He sighed, backtracked, and dug through a desk in one of the other rooms until he found a pen. He copied down the message on the piece of paper he had picked up, just in case it was important.

A few apartments later, Walter shouted, "I found one!" and handed him another paper. It was written in the same handwriting that the other messages had been in.

_"It wasn't so bad until they remodeled. But now Haralda is surrounded. There is someone on either side, and she's paranoid."_

Even in combination with the other notes, that didn't look as though it was going to help him figure out where the key was. What was worse was that they were running out of doors.

The final open apartment on that floor was completely bare, devoid even of monsters or furniture. There weren't even separate rooms; it was just one big, empty space. The only thing that broke up the monotony was a note, nailed to the wall with a rusty spike.

Henry pulled it free and frowned at it.

_"She wasn't the only one who didn't get her wish. John wanted to be the closest to the door, but his request was denied."_

He could only hope these notes would eventually start to make sense. He thought about them as they climbed the stairs to the third floor. They were supposed to be clues as to which box the key was in, but they seemed to be talking more about people living in the apartment building. Unless the writer was using a metaphor to hide what he was talking about, and the homes he had referenced were actually the boxes…

Walter stopped to open the door, and Henry took the opportunity to read over the notes they had found so far. Yes, it was starting to look like one of _those_ puzzles, where you had to sort out what order the people were standing in—or in this case, what order they lived in, which would be what order the boxes were in.

Then he realized that the door to the third floor was locked.

"You've got to be kidding me," he said.

Walter took a step back and waved him forward to try for himself.

The door was beyond locked. The doorknob wouldn't move at all.

Henry sighed and sat down on the steps. Maybe they had enough after all. He wrote the numbers one through five across the top of the page, for the five boxes. From what the first clue had said, the door was by the fifth box. Haralda was surrounded, so her box wasn't the first or fifth. He groaned. The only other thing they knew was that _John_, whoever he was, didn't have box five.

He glared up at Walter, who was just standing there, shining the flashlight on the papers for him. "Let's see if we missed anything on the first floor," he muttered, getting up and starting down the stairs.

"Did I do something?" Walter asked.

Henry nearly choked and decided to let that go unanswered.

The search of the first floor proved monumentally unsuccessful. There was nothing there that looked even remotely useful—no strange messages written on the walls, no paper hidden under the furniture, no cryptic puzzles in the room numbers—and more monsters had shown up.

After smacking another Scuttler down with the spade, Henry sighed and rubbed his head. This was going to take all day. It had taken long enough to drive here, and now it looked as though the town were going to make every step to the Wish House a long, painful nightmare. He wondered how many people would notice that nightfall came without him returning home. Eileen certainly would.

Setting down the spade, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and stared at it. Amazingly, it looked as though it was working.

"I need to make a call," he said, dialing Eileen's number while walking down the hall a bit.

Walter nodded and leaned against the wall.

While the phone rang, Henry tried to imagine what in the world he would say. What exactly had he told her—that they were going to be gardening?

_Hello Eileen, my friend and I are going to be gardening for a few days. We've set up camp._

That sounded ridiculous.

As he tried to think of something better, she answered. "Hello?"

"Hello. It's me, Henry."

"Henry! How's it going? Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Oh…it's certainly been different," he sighed. "Look, Eileen, I just wanted to let you know that I probably won't be back before tomorrow. I didn't want you to worry."

"An overnight gardening trip?" she asked skeptically.

"Of course not!" he laughed, glad he hadn't gone with that from the start. The easiest thing to do would be to tread as close to the truth as he could. "Do you remember that the letter I got said that my friend needed help? Well, he needs help finding someone, and it looks as though it may take a while."

"Is there any way I can help?"

"No! I mean…I have to help him alone."

"Why?"

_Because he was once a murderous maniac, and I have to keep an eye on him until I figure out what to do._ No, he certainly couldn't tell her that. _Because I don't want help._ That would probably sound arrogant._ Because he's my best friend._ He wasn't sure he could even force those words out.

_I knew you'd help me._

"We're almost brothers!" he blurted.

"This morning you couldn't even imagine who would be writing to you!" Eileen reminded him, sounding shocked. "You forgot about someone you were that close to?"

"No, I mean it literally! You know how sometimes, you notice that if two people had married differently, you and your friend would be technically cousins, or something like that?" He waited, but when the response was dead silence, he quickly hurried on. "It's like that! We could have been brothers, except that family trees just don't _work_ that way, and…" He trailed off, aware that he was going to start making less and less sense unless he actually mentioned Room 302 as that family link.

He then noticed that while he had been babbling, Walter had walked over to him. Henry frowned at him and took a step away.

Eileen finally responded. "Henry, I'm really not sure what you're talking about…"

"Henry, may I say hello?"

Henry gritted his teeth and said, "My friend says hello."

"Oh…well, hello to him, I'm sure…"

"No, I mean I want to actually say hello to her myself!"

"Just a minute, Eileen." Henry covered the mouthpiece with his hand and glared at Walter. "No!"

"Please?"

Henry held the phone tightly, stepping further away from him. "Over my dead body!"

"Henry, you're being irrational! What could I possibly do to her over a telephone?"

"Maybe nothing physically, but I care about Eileen!" He could her asking him what was going on, and he yelled, "Just a minute, Eileen!" into the phone before quickly covering it up again. He jabbed his finger at Walter. "After what you did to her, I don't want her hearing your voice. I don't want her hearing your _name_. I don't want her to be forced to deal with the memory of you at all, in any way, ever again!"

"I just need a minute. I need to ask for Miss Galvin's forgiveness."

Henry stared at him in disbelief.

"She was always so kind, so understanding…"

"That's true. But some things are unforgivable."

Walter looked at him with such an unreadable expression on his face that Henry worried he had gone too far. He turned away from him, though, and then Henry realized that something else was going on.

The walls were changing, as a rusty color oozed out of the white and took over. He looked around in alarm as what appeared to be reddish bars crashed down from the ceiling along the walls. The floor was undergoing a similar transformation, cracking and peeling as the color changed.

The radio had gone mad, blaring with static, and even the phone was crackling, with Eileen's voice barely audible.

"We're losing the connection!" Henry yelled into the phone.

A horrible screeching filled his ears, and he turned just in time to see a Chained Man lunging for him. He looked down the hallway to where he had set down the spade and cursed, fumbling for the gun.

"Henry, duck!"

He ducked, and Walter's pipe swung over him and into the monster.

Eileen was still trying to speak to him. He could hear snatches of her voice in between the bursts of static, but it was rapidly fading.

"Don't worry about me!" he shouted, hoping she could hear him. "Just stay there. Stay in Ashfield, Eileen!"

Then the phone died completely, and he looked around at the strange new version of the apartment building.


	6. Chapter 6: Otherworld

Chapter 6: Otherworld

Eileen stared at the silent phone in her hand. When the dial tone started up, she jumped in alarm, before realizing that she was being silly. She hung up the phone and frowned at it. A lost connection, even one with as much noise and static as this one had had, could be explained in a lot of ways, but she couldn't shake her feeling of unease.

There had been a lot of yelling in the background. It had sounded like Henry and his friend were arguing over something, but then the noises became more jumbled and insane. She'd had the disturbing feeling that they were being attacked, right before the phone went dead.

_ Stay in Ashfield, Eileen._

That was what Henry had yelled into the phone. Whatever was going on, he didn't want her getting involved.

She hesitated for a moment, and then picked up the phone. Dialing Henry's number, she braced herself to be cut off again, or to not get through at all. Still, she hoped she would hear him answer, just as reassurance that he was all right.

Instead, an automated voice informed her that the number she was trying to call did not exist.

Shaken and confused, Eileen tried again, in case she had dialed the wrong number, but she received the same message.

She sighed and hung up, staring at the phone while she thought about what was going on. Henry hadn't been acting strangely the entire day; it was only after his meeting with his friend that this had begun. His disproportionate horror to her opening his apartment door was unforgettable. She had been willing to accept his explanation that he only needed time alone, but now that was too clearly an excuse.

_Stay in Ashfield, Eileen._

He had even said earlier that day that he was concerned about her safety. The events of three years ago weighed too heavily on his mind, and she had the worrying impression that, if he were ever in a similar situation, he would avoid involving her at all costs, even if it meant increasing his own danger.

Who was there to be concerned for Henry Townshend's safety?

Eileen gave the phone a final glance, and then grabbed her handbag and headed out of her apartment. It was time to pay a visit to the South Ashfield Café, and see if any light could be shed on what had happened that morning.

xXx

Henry wished he had the flashlight. If he did, he would have already been on his way to the exit. Even if the Scuttlers were still all out there, it had to be preferable to this—a rust-and-blood colored facsimile of the apartment building that was all too reminiscent of the alternate South Ashfield Heights he had seen three years previous.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the flashlight, and he didn't want to be stuck in this place in the dark. That meant he had to follow Walter, who was rambling incoherently about the Order's connection to the Otherworld, staying away from the walls in a peculiarly obvious way, and heading for Room 110 to see if anything had changed.

When they got there, something had changed. It was quite a major change. The door was locked.

"That doesn't make any sense," Henry groaned, rubbing his head. He was starting to think he'd never get out of here. At least he had retrieved the spade.

"Perhaps we can get to the third floor now," Walter said.

They retraced their steps to the stairway, only to find that it, too, was now impassable. The door to the second floor no longer even had a visible handle or doorknob, and it had been transformed into a gigantic grandfather clock. The casing on its face had been smashed open, and the minute hand was missing. The other two hands were gold, and gleamed brightly, looking very out of place amidst the disrepair around them.

Henry's first thought was to push it out of the way, but when he set a hand on the wooden exterior, he knew that something was wrong. It didn't feel like wood ought to, and he had the disturbing impression that it was pricking his skin.

He pulled his hand away, leaving a bloody handprint. He stared down at his bleeding hand in shock, and then back at the clock, as the blood dripped from his handprint into words.

_None shall pass, while time is incomplete._

"Well, that's simple enough," Walter commented. "It wants the minute hand back."

"Just _wait_ a minute," Henry growled, since he looked ready to go running off in search of the lost item. "I need to bandage my hand."

He took one of the first-aid kids—and briefly considered confiscating the backpack of food and medical supplies, even though that meant he would be carrying everything—and bandaged his hand, glancing up warily at Walter from time to time.

"You don't trust me."

_I'm not getting into this again._

"Let me have the flashlight," he said instead.

"Only if you promise to keep helping."

"Fine."

Walter gave him the flashlight, and he hung it around his own neck, wondering why he actually intended to honor that promise. The sane thing to do would be to leave the apartment building and the town by any means necessary. It didn't seem like the honorable thing, though, so he simply angled the flashlight so that the light shone in front of him, and returned to trying doors on the first floor. Several that had been locked were now accessible.

His annoyance at the situation translated into instant death for the Scuttlers and Chained Men he encountered in the newly unlocked rooms, many of which again were fairly unhelpful. He kept his eyes open for scraps of paper or glints of gold, but saw neither.

Finally, he opened one door into a room that was different from the rest, and he knew part of the answer had to be here. The walls of the room were covered, floor to ceiling, with clocks.

All different types of clocks filled the room. From grandfather clocks that could challenge the one blocking the stairs, to tiny things that were practically watches; from plain, unremarkable clocks, to incredibly ornate and detailed ones; and from sleek and modern clocks, to old, antique collectors' items, the room looked as though it might have been built from timepieces, so many were there.

They were all ticking at the same time, sounding like a loud, steady metronome that drove its way into Henry's head maddeningly. Trying to ignore it as much as he could, he turned to look at Walter, who was stepping into the room.

Before he could say a word, the room exploded into deafening ringing. Alarms, chimes, and bells all rang out, as each clock contributed to the cacophony.

Henry jumped backwards, clapping his hands over his ears and not daring to remove them until the noise ceased.

When the clocks finally stopped, not even returning to their ticking, a paper floated down from the ceiling, jarred loose by the vibrations. He caught it. The writing was cursive and fluid, not the same handwriting that the other notes had been in.

_ Dear Will,_

_ I hope this letter finds you in good health. I keep saying I'll come to visit you one day, but something always comes up. I'll come soon, I promise. Do you still have that strange watch you were telling me about? I swear, it can't be any weirder than the things I've seen around this town.  
__ I'm not complaining. Life here in Silent Hill is good._

The letter continued for some time in a similar fashion, as the writer continued to talk about their life and various relatives. It ended abruptly, though. For some reason, the person never had finished writing.

After scanning it a second time to make sure it didn't have any significance to the puzzle of the boxes, Henry set it down on top of a nearby clock. He then began to walk around the room, looking for a minute hand to fit the clock in the hall.

It would have been easy to miss, if not for its distinctive brightness that set it apart. It was trapped between two of the smaller clocks against the left wall, but it came free as soon as he pulled on it. He put it in his pocket.

He turned back towards the door, and saw that Walter had picked up the letter and was reading it with an undecipherable look on his face.

"Are you ready to go?" Henry asked, pausing.

Walter set it down again and walked out into the hall, not even waiting for the light.

Henry gave the letter a final look as he left, but he could see nothing in it that would cause such a strange reaction.

The radio started crackling as soon as he joined Walter in the hall, and he realized that more monsters had shown up while they were in the clock room. There were few enough of them, however, that they were easily overcome.

Once they reached the stairway again, Henry pulled out the minute hand and stuck it onto the face of the clock. For a moment, nothing happened, and then the three hands begin to spin. Faster and faster they went, losing their luster with each revolution, and blood began to drip from the center of the clock face. A steady stream trickled down to the floor, and then the clock was still.

He hesitated before touching it, remembering the last time, but the wood felt normal. The clock easily slid to the side, revealing the stairway.

The second floor of the Otherworld apartment was just as the first floor had been—previously open doors were locked, but it was countered by some of the locked doors now opening. It also was darker than it had been before, and he knew they'd still need the flashlight. This floor had taken a more gruesome turn, as well.

Bloodstains were more evident here, both on the walls and on the floor. It was particularly bad in the rooms, where the splattered blood suggested a horrible counterpart to the previously normal lives that Henry had been able to imagine had existed here.

Leaving a room that had bloody messages about death written on the walls, he looked to see if Walter was affected by any of it. His face, however, was still as unreadable as it had been since the clock room. He didn't seem to particularly care about the blood on the floor or in the rooms, but he was still studiously avoiding the walls in the hallway.

Henry made sure his handgun was still well within reach, and continued on.

One room appeared to be entirely empty, but from the moment he entered, a high-pitched wailing began, not ending until he left. Another contained only a television, with all its wires cut, and a skeleton with a smashed-in skull lying in front of it. Yet another was little more than a death trap, with a group of Chained Men advancing towards him until he slammed the door.

The next room he entered featured a table piled high with books and papers, one of which had the next clue scribbled on it. He dispatched the lone Chained Man waiting for them, and picked up the paper.

_"John went to see Rosie as soon as he could. He thought she was lucky, you see, because she was given the spot he had wanted the most."_

Henry put that note with the others he was carrying, noting to himself that that meant Rosie was closest to the door, meaning the fifth box. With still no comments from his silent companion, he continued on.

The next unlocked door opened onto a room that was dark, unlike the others. He shone the flashlight into it cautiously, and took a step inside.

The door slammed shut.

He turned to it in alarm, twisting the doorknob futilely. It was locked. He hammered on the door, hoping that Walter might be able to open it from the hallway, but there was no response. There was a keyhole on his side of the doorknob, however, so he told himself not to panic. Shaking off a twisting sense of déjà vu, he shone the flashlight around the room, hoping against hope that the key was there.

He spotted the glinting of a silver key, hanging from a nail on the far side of the room. Then the flashlight flickered once, and went out, leaving him in total darkness. For a few seconds, he was alone with only the sound of his breathing, and then a strange rumbling started up around him.

_Don't worry about what that is_, he told himself, despite part of his mind insisting that now was certainly a good time to panic._ Just go and get the key._

There had been nothing on the floor to trip over, so he began to walk straight ahead. He had a good enough idea of where on the wall the key was, so that when he reached it, he'd simply be able to feel around until he found it, and then make his way back to the door. The plan's simplicity helped distract him from the fact that if the key was for a different lock, he would be trapped.

_Again. Trapped again. No, don't think about that. Just get the key._

He continued to walk across the room, but he stopped partway when his arm brushed the wall. He hadn't been that close to it when he started out, but he supposed that, in the dark, he easily could have veered slightly to the side without realizing it.

When he took a few steps in the other direction and bumped into the other wall, however, he knew that something was very wrong. His blood ran cold, and he hurried forward in panic, wanting to get the key as quickly as he could. He connected solidly with the wall, it being much closer than it should have been.

He fought down a wave of panic with more difficulty this time. The walls were literally closing in on him.

_Calm down. Just get the key. Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic!_

He ran his fingers over the wall and found nothing. His mind had gone blank, and he couldn't remember where the key had been. He scrabbled desperately against the wall, trying to find it.

_Oh God, what if I got turned around, and this isn't even the right wall?_

At last, his hands brushed something cool and metallic, and he pulled it free with a gasp of relief.

A scream rang out from the walls around him, the same sort of disembodied scream that he had been hearing throughout Silent Hill. The shock caused him to drop the key, and when he dropped to his knees to grab it, he realized that all four walls were now extremely close.

He reached for the doorknob, trying to find it, but the screams were unceasing, rattling his nerves. He knew that there wasn't really someone there, but it sounded so much like a person was in pain. He shuddered, thinking about someone being attacked, in torment, far from anyone who could help them.

_Where is the doorknob?_

He shuddered again, violently. The walls were getting closer and closer, pressing in on him. They would keep coming, until his bones shattered and he was completely crushed. And wouldn't the air be running out soon?

_Trapped again, worse than before…_

At least Room 302 had been an apartment, not a tiny space that was getting progressively smaller. Although, his chances of dying had been incredibly high back then, too; after all, the only reason he had been trapped there was because he had made the list of the 21 Sacraments. Walter Sullivan had been going to kill him if he had the chance, just as surely as this room would.

That had truly been a nightmare, near the end. He could still remember the insane glint of his eyes, as he chased them through the forest with a chainsaw. He could almost feel the blade coming down on him…

Henry gripped his hair tightly, trying to pull himself back into reality. Reality, unfortunately, involved being squeezed by a tiny room. Panic flooded him again, and he nearly sunk under the weight of his horrified thoughts.

_ I'm going to die._

_ This room is going to kill me._

_ Sullivan's going to kill me._

_ 21st Sacrament… Can't get out of the room…can't get out of this room…_

_ Doorknob!_

He at last dragged himself into the present long enough to search for the doorknob. All the while, the fear threatened to rise up again. His hand closed over the cold knob just in time, and a dizzying sense of relief filled him.

_Focus, Henry!_

He remembered that he still had to unlock the door. He fumbled with the key, experiencing a few moments of panic while he tried to get it in the keyhole, all the while mindful that soon the walls would be touching him on all sides. Finally, the key went in. He turned it quickly, twisting the doorknob and pushing open the door.

He stumbled out into the hallway, and the flashlight flickered back on just in time for him to see Sullivan's pipe swinging towards him. Caught in a mixture of the past and present, he jumped out of the way and had his gun out and aimed before he fully realized what he was doing.

_He's going to kill me!_

"Henry, calm down. It was an accident."

"I'll bet it was, you murderer!"

The sudden pain in Walter's eyes was quickly masked, but it was enough for Henry to remember where—and when—he was. He also realized that he had the gun pressed against Walter's head.

"Oh." He pulled the gun away. "I…"

"Never mind," Walter said. He turned and began to walk away, once again not seeming to care that he wouldn't have any light with him.

Henry turned the flashlight toward the door of the terrible room, wondering if it would show any sign of what had happened inside. It didn't, but he did notice something else. The door, and parts of the wall around it, was damaged in a way that looked suspiciously as though someone had been trying to force the door open by battering it with a metal pipe.

He suddenly felt very guilty.

_He was trying to get me out of there, and I nearly killed him._

To be fair, he had ample cause to mistrust Walter Sullivan, and he expected he only had tried to open the door because he wanted his help here in Silent Hill. Still, he felt he should apologize, especially considering how violent his reaction had been.

"Walter?" he called, hurrying down the hallway after him. "Look, I…"

"You don't have to explain," he responded bitterly, not breaking his stride.

Henry gritted his teeth. He had the feeling that Walter would walk through a pitch-black room, tripping over things and bumping into walls, rather than show that the person with the flashlight had hurt him.

"Just listen to me," he said, grabbing him by the arm and forcing him to stop. He reminded himself that he had literally pushed Walter around when they were back in Ashfield, and nothing bad had come at it. That reassurance was negated slightly by the distant, dangerous look on Walter's face.

"What is it?"

Henry sighed, wondering how to word this. "You have to understand that trusting you is difficult. I'm not used to thinking of you as an ally."

Walter lost the dangerous look, suddenly looking incredibly sad. "Yes…no one could ever…"

He spoke over him. "Still, I'm sorry about what happened back there. I shouldn't have reacted like that." Walter looked startled by that, and so he explained, "I know you were actually trying to help. But when I was in that room…" He shuddered, not wanting to talk about what had happened. "Well, when I came out, I thought it was three years ago. I know, that must sound crazy…"

"I understand crazy." He even smiled. "Come on, Henry. Let's get back to searching this apartment building."

With some of the tension gone, they continued on. That had been the last unlocked door on the floor, so they climbed the stairs leading to the third floor, hoping the door would be open this time. Like everything else, it had changed. While it had previously been a regular, wooden door, like all the others, it now was made of a rust-colored metal. There was no doorknob in sight, but a keypad sat on the wall to the side.

Henry shone the light at the keypad. Scratched into the side of it was the number _206_.

It was worth a try. He punched in the numbers, but nothing happened.

_Maybe the code is in Room 206._

"Could it mean Room 206?" Walter asked, echoing his thoughts.

He shrugged and led the way back down the hall. He hadn't been keeping track of room numbers, and he was very worried that it could be that room. If it was, he certainly wasn't going in there to be trapped again.

Fortunately, 206 was the room with the television and skeleton in it. He walked in, and Walter followed. They had looked through it before, but since they hadn't been looking for a number, there was a good chance they would have missed it.

After looking around, however, Henry wasn't so sure. Other than the two obvious objects, the apartment was empty. He circled around the television, looking closely at it in case the code was carved into it. There was nothing. He stepped away from it and frowned in dismay.

"It could be hidden on the skeleton," Walter pointed out.

Henry looked at the skeleton and then back at him. "You could be helping, you know."

"You seemed to like handling things yourself. Go ahead."

He raised his eyebrows, wondering if he was serious, and took another glance at the skeleton. Searching a corpse for the keys to his own apartment had been horrifying enough, and he had been desperate by that point. He certainly wasn't going to touch this one.

Walter actually grinned. He walked over and knelt by the skeleton, picking up one of the arms and waving with it. "See? Just bones."

"Will you just get on with it?" Henry growled, biting back a mean-spirited comment about Walter's familiarity with death and corpses.

He searched the skeleton, but finally set it down and stood up. "Nothing."

_What now?_

Before Henry could ask, the television crackled, much as the radio did in the presence of monsters, and the snowy indicator of bad reception filled the screen. He jumped back and stared at it. He knew it hadn't been connected to anything. There was no way that set could be receiving any sort of broadcast. Yet somehow, it was.

The snow flickered, the distorted image behind it faintly visible. Garbled words could be heard amidst the static. It flickered again, and then it cleared up entirely.

A slender, middle-aged man was on the screen, dressed in what appeared to be ceremonial robes. He seemed faintly amused by something. Henry had never seen the man before in his life, but, judging by the way he was staring at the television, Walter had.

The strange man smirked. "Well, you certainly know all the words, but we may need to work on the understanding behind them." He laughed. "Still, you're enthusiastic, which is more than I can say for most of the nimrods they send me. Very well. I'll teach you."

The image began to blur again, and then the screen went black. The television was just as dead as it had been before.

"What the hell?" He frowned. "Was that supposed to help us?"

"Yes." Walter's voice sounded distant. "I…would like to try something."

He didn't press him for details, because he had an oddly detached look on his face again. They returned to the stairway, and at the top of the climb, Henry stepped out of the way.

Walter stared at the keypad for a long time. Finally, he reached forward and hit five numbers. The keypad chimed, and the door slid open. He didn't move.

Henry leaned closer to see the code he had entered. The screen read _06121_. He flinched. That sort of numbering system—especially in connection with Sullivan—was all too familiar. He couldn't place a name with it, though. He wasn't sure he had ever known who the sixth victim was.

It must have been that man on the screen. A priest from the cult, maybe? Someone who Walter knew from the Wish House?

He decided not to ask. Walter seemed bothered enough by the memory.

Past the doorway, a single scrap of paper was tacked onto the wall.

_"At first I thought it was only her, but now I've realized that everyone here is insane. I don't want to meet with everyone and piece together a puzzle every time I need something that she hid. Something ought to be done about Haralda."_

Henry had to sympathize with whoever had written the note.

The state of the third floor was still troubling, but it was a familiar sort of creepiness by now, and not as shocking. The most notable difference was in the number of monsters. Every room, every _shadow_, seemed to contain a Scuttler waiting to attack.

The first unlocked door led into a room that seemed very ritualistic. As Walter fought a Chained Man, Henry hurried over to a circle of candles that sat on a desk, surrounding a paper with the familiar handwriting on it.

_"Carl is a friendly fellow, and he loves to talk with his fellow neighbors. It's more of a trek when he talks to Rosie, though, because they aren't next to each other."_

Satisfied, Henry pulled it free and put it with the rest. He waited until they had reached a room that seemed somewhat normal, as normal as anything could be in the Otherworld.

"Wait a minute," he told Walter, wanting to examine his clues.

Henry turned the first paper he had found over, drawing a quick table on the back to diagram out where these "people" were in relation to the five boxes. He knew that Haralda was either second, third, or fourth. Rosie was fifth, and Carl wasn't fourth.

He sighed. He still didn't have enough information.

"We can't get into the room anyway," Walter reminded him, as they walked back out into the hall.

"Do you have any idea of how we'll get out of the Otherworld?"

"No."

_This just gets better and better._

Most of the rooms continued to be either locked or unhelpful. Many now had bloody messages on the walls, floors, or even ceilings. They ranged from threats, to pleas for help, to general ramblings. Henry saw too many references to being trapped for his comfort.

He shivered, momentarily reliving the horror of that room. Worse than the physical danger had been the fear, and how it had so easily overtaken his common sense.

No such nightmares awaited on this floor, however, to his great relief. He opened the final unlocked door, praying that the final key to the solution would be there. When he stepped through, a wild rush of voices reached his ears. Although at first the words were indistinguishable, he soon realized that they were all saying the same thing, just in different tones and speeds.

"Despair…"

As haunting as it was, he felt far from despairing as he looked around the apartment. There, attached to a cord that was hanging from the ceiling, was another piece of paper. He hurried over and grabbed it.

_"John was so afraid that he would have to be the furthest from the door. Hal soon reassured him, however. Hal already lived furthest from the door. They became friends quickly, especially since they lived right next to each other."_

Henry nervously pulled out the rest of his notes. This time, it had to be the end. Rosie was fifth, closest to the door. Hal was first, and John was second. His nervousness changed to excitement. Carl wasn't next to Rosie, so he had to be third. That meant that the only spot left for paranoid Haralda was fourth, and she was surrounded, just as the note had said.

_That's it! I've done it!_

"We need the fourth box!" he cried. "The second away from the door is the safe one, and the one with the key in it."

"You're sure?"

He looked over all of the notes again. There was no other meaning he could imagine. "Yes, I'm sure," he said, more soberly, as he remembered that it was literally a question of life and death.

"How will we get into Room 110?" Walter asked.

"I don't know," Henry admitted, heading back out of the room. "The way this place is, maybe it will just be mysteriously open now."

He walked directly into a horde of Scuttlers. Yelling in alarm, he whacked them left and right with the spade, even as he tried to count how many there were. He lost count, unable to concentrate and fight at the same time. All he knew was that there were a lot of them—too many for one person to face alone.

_ But I'm not alone,_ he reminded himself, as Walter joined the fray. _I have…an ally._

It was still an odd thought, but perhaps one he could get used to. Although the fighting was still long and tiring, they finally killed the last of the Scuttlers.

Henry felt strangely exuberant as they walked down the hallway. They were in a horrible place infested by monsters, but they were on their way out. He had solved the puzzle, and soon the key would be theirs. Surely, after this, the rest of the journey would be no problem at all. Even better, he was adjusting to the atmosphere. He hadn't heard one of those strange screams since leaving the shrinking room.

Ruining what had been a happy thought, Walter stopped suddenly and asked, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Someone whispering."

"No…"

They began to walk again, and Henry kept alert for any strange sounds. Although he heard nothing, Walter's gaze kept darting about the hallway, as though he did.

"Someone's whispering my name, over and over."

"I don't hear anything…"

"It's coming from…there…" Walter pointed at a door. "Of course…of course that is where she would meet me…where it all began…"

Henry looked at Room 302 with dismay. "Walter, this isn't even the same apartment building."

"She must have meant it in a metaphorical sense."

"That door was locked."

"I bet it isn't, now." He stepped forward and twisted the doorknob. It turned easily. "See?"

"Why would your mother be here, hiding in an apartment like this? Walter, _think_! This doesn't make any sense."

Walter glared at him. "I really don't care." He turned his attention back to the door.

Henry sighed. What was the point in even arguing over something like this? When it came to being reunited with his mother, Sullivan would go to _any_ lengths. That, it seemed, hadn't changed with his return to life, even if he knew the truth about the 21 Sacraments.

_Would he kill, again, if that was what it took?_

Worryingly, he had no answer. Allies they might have been for the moment, but if that somehow became detrimental to Walter's quest… It was clear that he wasn't entirely stable, and at times like this, it appeared that he was still completely insane.

Henry pulled out his handgun and looked at it. There was, he knew, one way to be sure. If Sullivan died now, he could leave and not have to worry about any of this. Eileen and everyone else would be safe from him.

_Do it,_ the pragmatic part of his mind urged.

_And if I do it,_ he wondered, _what will that make me? Some of the people he killed had been bad people, some possibly murderers, and I called it murder. I condemn his murder of Andrew DeSalvo, but does that mean I would condemn myself? If I kill Walter, will it be justice or murder? Will it be an act for the greater good or a crime?_

_ Is there truly such a thing as a second chance?_

As torn by indecision as he was, Henry finally came to a decision. Hating himself for what he was going to do, he lifted the gun.

"Hey, Walter."

Walter turned from the door, looking ready to argue.

"Here." He held out the handgun, digging around for a supply of ammo. "Just in case things aren't what you think they are."

"I…" Walter appeared to be in shock as he took the weapon and ammunition. Henry was reminded strongly of the way he had first looked in the café, when he thought Henry had bought food just for him. "Thank you."

He opened the door to Room 302 and stepped in. Henry began to follow, but the wall seemed to shiver. He frowned at it and started to call out to Walter, but then the doorway vanished entirely.

Henry stared at the red, crumbling wall that sat where Room 302 used to be, and finally he sat against the opposite wall.

_ You could just try to get the key from the box and leave._

He pushed that thought aside. Even if the room in question hadn't been locked in the Otherworld, going off on his own now would be downright treacherous. For the moment, there was nothing to do but sit and wait.


	7. Chapter 7: Memory of Despair

Chapter 7: Memory of Despair

The first thing he noticed was that the apartment looked normal. The wallpaper was peeling and the ceiling was cracked, but they looked solid. They weren't made of shivering, bruised flesh that would bleed whenever he got too close, unlike the rest of the building. With each door looking like an infected wound and every area worse than the last, he was surprised that Henry was as unaffected by it as he was. After his initial shock, even the walls didn't seem to bother him.

Walter shuddered. At least he was here, in a room where things seemed real again. For the moment, it was enough just to be able to breathe calmly.

The room was furnished, unlike many of the others they had seen. It was plain, however, and he didn't think anything was hiding, waiting to attack. There certainly wasn't enough room for one of the humanoid Stranglers to be lying in ambush, and if the creeping Bloody Hands were around, he'd hear them coming. He'd heard that voice, however, that wonderful voice from the telephone, whispering his name. The apartment couldn't be empty.

"Mom?" he called awkwardly, his voice sounding too loud in the silent room. He walked forward, looking around.

The layout of the room was not like the other apartments in the building, but he found it familiar. It was too familiar, in fact. Despite what he had suggested in the hall, it was really as though the room from South Ashfield Heights had been placed here.

A wave of confusing emotions swept through his mind, and he stopped. This always had been his goal. Room 302. Mother. Sanctuary. He had never understood why he couldn't be with her, or why everyone always chased him away. He only knew that he had to free her, save her from them. His parents had abandoned him, or so he had been told, but his mother was asleep there, waiting for him.

He reached towards the wall cautiously. The world seemed dizzyingly unreal, as though he had simply been dreaming all this time. Had he actually succeeded, and this was the homecoming he had dreamed of? His fingers touched the cold, inanimate wall, and he pulled them away.

No, it hadn't been a dream. He really had been deceived for so long. He suddenly felt very sad and alone.

_But she's here. I heard her._

"Mom?" he called again, wondering if he should stay there, by the couch, or keep searching the apartment.

Henry may have had his doubts, but Walter didn't plan to hurt his biological mother. He wasn't sure what he felt for her, but it wasn't pure hate. He wanted to shout, and demand to know how she could abandon him and never look back, but if she accepted him, he would let it go. If she truly wanted to be with him again, hold him like a mother should, and show him the love no one ever had, he would forgive everything.

Deep inside, he ached for that acceptance.

He sat down on the couch, afraid to continue on. She might not be there at all, or worse, she might reject him.

_I have to know._

He took a deep breath, suddenly firm in his resolve. She had been calling to him, just as he had so often called to her. She had abandoned him, but he wouldn't continue the cycle by abandoning her.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled with the sudden sensation that someone was watching him. He stood up quickly, and as he did so, the room around him began to change. The lights flickered and dimmed. The walls split and cracked as red stains appeared, as though they were being drawn out towards him. They weren't alone; the same thing was happening to the furniture, doors, and everything else, until the entire apartment had a bloody, grimy look.

He hurried across the room towards the laundry room door. He would have to search quickly. If his mother were here, he'd get her out before something terrible happened. As he went, he glanced towards the door, half-expecting it to be heavily locked and chained.

He stopped dead. There was no door at all. Where he had walked in was just another wall.

Before he could think of anything to do, the wall to his left blurred. He blinked, wondering if there was something wrong with his vision, but it didn't help matters. All around the room, things blurred and twisted in impossible ways. Windows sunk into the wall and furniture bled into the floor. The familiarity of the apartment vanished, and he found himself standing in a single, gigantic room, with four seamless, impenetrable walls around him.

The sense of being watched struck him again, and he tightened his grips on both the pipe and the handgun. It was as though cold, menacing eyes were fixed on him, but no matter where he looked, he couldn't see anything.

A mocking, insane laugh rang out suddenly, as though coming from the walls themselves. It sounded familiar, as though he had heard it before. He looked up into the highest corners, still seeing nothing but the room's own strangeness. The walls were now curving as they went upward, yet they still formed right angles with the ceiling, impossibly. The effect was disconcerting.

Then he noticed a disturbance at the center of the ceiling. A shadow was forming, and something was pulling its way out. He braced himself, prepared for anything, but when he saw what it was, he was taken aback.

Enormous, glaring, and suspended from his shadowy nest in the ceiling, was Joseph Schreiber.

Or, rather, it was something that _resembled_ Joseph Schreiber. Even in death, his eyes had never had such a dead, blank look to them. Despite its humanoid appearance, there was something wrong about it. It dripped with shadows, distorting the air around it. It opened its mouth in a hiss, and he realized with some shock that this thing was large enough to eat him.

It came at him suddenly, sliding through the ceiling as though on rails. Walter jumped to his left, but somehow ended up several feet to the right, instead. He shook his head rapidly, disoriented and trying to clear his mind.

_Oh no…_

He took a cautious step to the right, wondering if that would send him left. However, his foot hit the ground a foot or so behind where he had started. He looked up. The monster was simply watching him, teeth bared in a rictus grin.

A step back took him forward. Keeping track in his mind, he reasoned that moving forward would send him left. However, he ended up somewhere else entirely. His foot never touched the ground at the end of the stop, because he had somehow walked onto the wall across from him.

He hit the ground and growled in annoyance at the pain that shot through him. At the same time, the Schreiber-monster charged again, and he was forced to roll out of the way. After hitting a wall he had been nowhere near, he took a moment to try and regain his composure.

Unfortunately, the creature wasn't going to allow him that much time. Teeth gnashing, it sped towards him again. He raised the handgun and shot at it, almost reflexively.

The trajectory of the bullet was incredible. It had gone no more than a few inches towards its target, when it was suddenly coming from behind. It still didn't hit, however, because then it was going along a diagonal path. The bullet eventually lodged in the ceiling.

Walter dove out of the way of his implacable adversary, and, after falling off of another wall, put the gun away quickly. Shooting in here would be far too dangerous.

_Wonderful. This room is entirely unpredictable._

He raised the pipe, ready to swing it as the giant Schreiber came towards him again. It crashed towards him, and he hit it as hard as he could. It roared, an awful cry that inexplicably echoed around the room, but it headed in another direction.

That would be the plan, then. He would wait here, with his back against the wall, and wait for it to come to him.

Peals of mad laughter rang out, and something sharp struck him in the side. He looked, stepping away instinctively, and from the other side of the room where he ended up, he saw that the wall had come to life. Shifting and flowing, he could see a blade-like formation disappearing again into the rest of the wall.

A strong blow hit his right arm, and he saw vicious, blade-like cords from the wall behind him claiming it, pulling it towards the wall. He jerked it free, and as blood welled up from the tears in his sleeve, he made a dash to get away.

Not knowing where his steps would take him, it took many tries before he was a safe distance from the walls. His arm hurt, but he ignored it.

The figure was sliding towards him again, so he raised the pipe and waited. It came closer and closer, and then he struck.

His pipe swung through empty air.

A heavy force hit the back of his head, and he was knocked to the ground as the monster passed above him. He lifted his head to watch it and saw that its location now changed with the same unpredictability that the room had shown.

Hissing softly between his teeth, Walter didn't stand up. He felt around the back of his head and was relieved to find no blood, although he knew that even a bloodless strike to the head could be dangerous. He would have to deal with that later, when he got out of this.

He was tempted to stand up, showing the monster that he wasn't afraid of it despite its abilities, but he decided to stay close to the ground, which seemed to be out of its range. He had to remember that he was mortal again. If something killed him now, he would stay dead. It was an odd thing to realize.

Temporarily distracted by his sense of mortality, he missed a chance to strike at his adversary as it passed over him. The fact that it didn't attack gave him confidence, and he waited for it to cross that way again. When it approached, he rose to a crouch. He lifted the pipe above his head when it was in range, lashing out in multiple directions to counter its evasion.

Unfortunately, the awkward angle reduced the force of his blow. If he fought like that, it would take him forever to kill it. He reluctantly stood up, wishing the monster wasn't so easily setting the terms by which they fought.

He attacked as it reached him again, knowing that it might hit him this time. If he were lucky, and fast enough, though, he would be able to do some damage. He spun in place to face it as its location shifted, relying on quick reaction times to tell him in time where it was—only to discover that the way he turned no longer dictated the way he would end up facing.

It ran him down from the side, and he did get a single strike in, although then it caught his left arm in the momentary grip of its teeth. Each tooth was massive; terrible pain accompanied the _crack_ of his bones before it released him.

On the ground, he stared at his shattered wrist in disbelief. He had felt worse pain than this, but he once again reminded himself that major injuries could no longer be shrugged off. This thing really had the power to kill him.

He wondered what would have happened if it hadn't chosen to release his arm. For it _had_ decided, when it could easily have kept its grip. Would it have bit his arm in two, or would it have dragged him along? He had a momentary image of being smashed against walls by the monster.

_It's playing games with me._

He glared up at the monster as it passed by, almost expecting it to throw another fiendish twist at him. Mocking laughter issued, seemingly from everywhere at once. The rules of this room seemed to change at the whims of his opponent, and he was beginning to suspect it was keeping him alive for its own amusement. Every time he had thought he had a plan, it had revealed something else, destroying his hopes.

Walter sighed, the optimism he had been struggling to live by this second time cracking. He could feel the beginnings of despair creeping upon him.

_Despair…?_

The word sent a rush of cold through him, until it settled into a pit in his stomach. That, perhaps, was its goal, to bring him to the point of despair before killing him. He was beginning to understand the point of this room.

Was this how the real Joseph Schreiber had felt? In constant pain after a while, subject to the power of the Otherworld, under attack from the room that had once been his only sanctuary, had he felt this helplessly vulnerable? Had he wondered why he was being tormented in such a way, perhaps to the point of wishing for a clean death to end it all?

_Of course he did. That was the point._

Joseph had been a meddler, the occupant of Room 302, and the perfect candidate for the theme of Despair, particularly after he had gotten so far along in becoming the Giver of Wisdom. Guilt filled Walter now as he thought back to his supernatural assaults on the journalist. Joseph wasn't like many of the victims, who had had their own crimes he could have argued he was punishing them for. He fell into the other category, being a victim just by a twist of fate.

_His greatest crime was trying to do the right thing and stop me._

He gritted his teeth. That was all in the past. Joseph Schreiber was dead, and even if this thing looked like him, he couldn't let it win. If he gave up and died now, he would never have the opportunity to atone for the past.

The monster swung past overhead, and an insane plan began to form in Walter's mind. He'd have to be quick, but he still felt confident in his own abilities. He slipped the pipe into a special pocket in his coat, so that his good hand would be free. Making up his mind, he jumped into the air.

As soon as he had landed and taken note of where he was, he jumped again. Arriving in the air that time, he pushed off of the wall with his foot—not far, but enough to be sent somewhere else. If these were the rules of the room, then so be it. Eventually, a step or leap would have to take him near the monster.

At last, he reached it, falling towards the ground as it crossed by. Without hesitating, he grabbed at where Schreiber's collar would have been, although here it was a strange mix of faintly substantial shadows and decaying flesh. Using the creature as an anchor, he dropped down onto the massive platform that was its chin.

The smell of death washed over him. He braced himself, and then gripped its strange skin with his left hand. The pain was terrible, but he ignored it with sheer willpower. With his right hand, he got out his pipe. The monster was shaking its head, trying to throw him off, but he held on desperately.

_Despair… Despair…_

He wasn't entirely sure if that was his own mind, drawing on old memories, or if the room was whispering to him again, trying to throw him off balance. He shivered. Of all times, he couldn't afford to lose his grip on reality now…

_ Joseph Schreiber lit another Holy Candle, his hand trembling so much that the match almost went out before he had it lit. When at last the flame appeared, he sighed in audible relief and placed it in the spot where the last one had run down. He wiped sweat from his forehead and looked around the room with narrowed eyes, before stumbling over to his typewriter._

_ Did he know he was being watched? Did he suspect that the Otherworld was encroaching on his home _that_ much, now? It was unlikely that he knew, but he certainly was agitated. He was a far cry from the grimly fascinated, inquisitive would-be hero he had been when they first encountered each other._

_ He had gathered almost all of the wisdom he needed, typing away his findings for his successor's sake. He was now falling into the necessary role, succumbing to Despair. It would not be much longer, now._

_ He burned those candles almost permanently these days, instead of just when he saw a visible sign of the Otherworld's invasion. He was going to run out, soon._

_ Joseph looked up from the typewriter, as one of his candles got dangerously low. He had to have noticed that they were burning far quicker than was natural. He let out a cry and got up, hurrying to find another candle. On the way, he doubled over, gripping his head in pain…_

The flare of pain in Walter's left arm wrenched his mind back to the present, where the monster was doggedly trying to throw him to the ground. He took a deep breath, regaining his focus.

The veins and arteries in its neck were thicker than his arm, but he coldly saw that as only making them a better target. One was pulsating only a few feet away from him, and he angled his pipe and drove it in with all his strength.

The skin was oddly thick and hard to get through, but once he did, blood spurted everywhere. The creature howled in rage and Walter didn't relent. He pulled the pipe free and repeated the action in another spot.

Something grabbed his leg, and he looked away from his bloody work to see that the floor had come to life at last; dark tendrils rose to meet the racing, thrashing monster, wrapping themselves around Walter's legs and pulling him down.

He slid off of the chin, but before they could get him to the ground, he dropped the pipe and pulled out the handgun again. Pressing the barrel directly against the creature's skull as he fell past it, he fired, hopefully sending a bullet into its brain.

He hit the floor, and the shadows wrapped around him tightly. He had the sudden, horrifying feeling that they were going to drag him down, suffocating him. The gun fell from his hand. He twisted and fought against them, but it seemed like a losing battle as they wrapped around his throat, mouth, and nose.

_ No! I won't die like this!_

They tightened their grip with unnatural strength, and he had the fleeting thought that, on top of everything else, he would never get to see his mother.

Above him, the Schreiber giant let out a horrendous death cry and fell silent. The bonds from the floor slackened, and he forced his way free.

He looked at the limp thing hanging from the ceiling, hardly daring to believe that it was over. The way things were going, this could simply be another cruel trick of the room.

When he walked to retrieve his lost pipe and gun, however, he was walking in normal space again. His body moved in the direction he told it to. Putting both of his weapons back within his coat, he stared up at the monster for a moment. It looked so very much like Joseph Schreiber. He was beginning to understand why Henry regarded him with such distrust. All of his friendly overtures were infinitesimal compared to what he had done.

He caught a glimpse of motion in his peripheral vision and turned to look at the wall, where the door was once again appearing. He glanced at the monster a final time, and then squared his shoulders.

_I can never apologize for what I did to you, Joseph Schreiber, but I can still seek the forgiveness of the two who survived._

If such forgiveness was even possible.

Walter walked towards the door, leaving the terrible room behind.

* * *

_Note: If those first few paragraphs just left you completely confused, Walter and Henry are seeing the Otherworld differently. They're also perceiving the monsters differently, which is why they think of them by different names. :)_


	8. Chapter 8: What Happened in Ashfield

_Note: You know, I realized the other day, that I probably have the spade at least a foot longer than it really is. If you were wondering about the health drinks, though...I know they're called "nutrition drinks" in SH4, but I think "health drink" sounds better. I guess Henry changed brands in that three-year interlude. :)_

_

* * *

_

Chapter 8: What Happened in Ashfield

Henry suppressed a yawn of boredom as he checked his solution to the puzzle for the twentieth time. He felt like he had been waiting forever. He had taken an occasional walk up and down the hallway—it wasn't like he could forget where he was supposed to be, with that empty, doorless space marking the spot—but he hadn't gone very far, due to the waiting monsters.

That wasn't the only reason. Although he hated to admit it, he was afraid that if he went too far from the spot, he would choose not to return. That annoying part of his mind had hardly shut up the entire time.

_ You have the solution. You can just leave._

_ Why should you help him with anything? He's a murderer; leave him and be done with it._

_ He's probably dead now, anyway._

He refused to give in, stubbornly staying where he was. He'd made a promise to help, after all. Besides, he really didn't feel good about being a vigilante when there was no immediate threat.

The puzzle worked out to be the fourth box yet again, as it always did. Henry put the notes away. He was considering going for another short walk, when he noticed that something was happening. The red color of the walls was fading, reminding him much of when he had used Holy Candles back in Room 302. As they slowly became normal again, he turned his attention back to the blank wall, wondering what would happen to it now that they were out of the Otherworld.

For a moment, that wall stayed as it was. Then, it shook and underwent the same transformation, the door reappearing as it did so.

After a moment, the door opened, and Walter staggered out. He was covered in blood, and Henry couldn't tell which was his own and which wasn't. He was breathing heavily, with a strange look in his eyes, and his left arm was hanging at his side, with the wrist bent at an odd angle.

Henry stared at him in shock for a moment. _I guess his mother definitely wasn't in there._ "Are you all right?" he asked, getting up and stepping towards him.

"Perfect. Never been better."

Deciding that his sarcasm was justified, Henry didn't comment. "You have the first-aid kits in that backpack, right? You had better sit down. How badly are you hurt?"

Walter slid the backpack onto the floor and sat down, leaning his head back. "It's fine. I've been hurt worse."

"From you, that doesn't mean a whole lot," he muttered, getting out one of the first-aid kits.

"My right arm is cut, my left wrist is broken, and I may have been stabbed just a little. Oh." He winced. "I was hit in the back of the head, too."

Henry looked down at the kit and wished they had brought something a bit more substantial, such as a doctor.

"Don't get your hopes up; it's nothing fatal. I know."

"I wasn't hoping it was something fatal!"

Walter gave him a look like he didn't quite believe him, and asked, "May I please have the first-aid kit?"

He handed it over, feeling a bit put out. Admittedly, he _had_ been thinking earlier about how convenient it would be if Sullivan died, even entertaining thoughts of handling it himself…but it seemed so different when Walter actually mentioned it.

"Don't you need help?" he asked.

"No."

Henry skeptically watched him put a splint against his wrist. "You don't know what you're doing, do you?"

"You wouldn't know, either."

"You don't know that."

"You're a photographer, not a doctor."

"You aren't a doctor, either."

"At least my line of work involved dealing with people."

The corner of Henry's mouth twitched. "_Dealing_ with people?"

"Yes." He frowned. "Just leave me alone."

Henry realized then that something was definitely wrong, besides the obvious. That look on his face wasn't just shock from a battle. There was more to it than that. It reminded him of the haunted look he had caught glimpses of previously; he had the feeling that, whatever Walter wanted to do with his second chance at life, his past was refusing to let him go. He thought about that, wondering if there was anything he could say that would help, while watching Walter struggle to wrap up his wrist.

Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. _That_, at least, he could help with, whether he wanted help or not.

Between the two of them, they managed to do a job that might have set back modern medicine fifty years, but it was better than nothing. Henry was actually feeling rather proud of himself until Walter looked at his wrist and asked if he would please not help with any of his other injuries.

He sat down and checked his puzzle solution for the final time. It occurred to him that it was the twenty-first time, which was quite fitting, really.

At last, Walter was ready, and they gathered up their stuff and returned downstairs. None of the doors were blocking the way this time, although there were still a few Scuttlers lurking around to slow them down.

"By the way," Walter asked, after one of the fights, "do you want your gun back?"

"No, it's okay." He had already gotten the revolver ready during the wait.

When they reached Room 110, Henry was almost afraid to try the door. Fortunately, it opened easily. The five boxes were still sitting as they had last seen them.

"Fourth box, you said, right?" Walter asked.

"Yes." He almost began to suggest that, since he was the one to work out the puzzle, perhaps he should be the one to take the risk, but he couldn't quite manage to say it. Feeling somewhat guilty, he watched Walter open the box.

Nothing happened, to his relief.

"Here are the keys," Walter said, pulling them out. "There's a newspaper clipping here, as well." He glanced at it, and then shrugged and handed it to Henry. He took it, frowning slightly because it was backed by what felt like a ceramic plaque.

_ Today, Silent Hill witnessed a tragic event. Police were alerted at 7 A.M. this morning, when shooting was heard coming from the Woodside Apartments. The apartments in question had been the source of police interest for some time now, as strange reports of theft were issued at least once a week._

_ The police arrived promptly on the scene, but by the time they got into the apartment, it was too late. Three men were dead, having apparently fallen victim to some manner of booby trap, and two women had been shot, one fatally. The survivor was still holding a gun, but she relinquished it to the police._

_ The survivor, a Miss Harriet Reed, confessed to having killed the other woman._

_ "Haralda was insane," she explained, claiming to feel no remorse for what she had done. "She kept taking our stuff, and no one was doing anything about it. Look at those three. They died trying to get their own stuff back. It wouldn't have stopped here. She would have killed us all."_

_ Investigators are still looking into what happened, wondering how the situation could have gotten so out of hand._

_ Reed is being held and her trial is set for Friday. While she does not deny what she did, she does not consider it to be murder. "I had to do it," she argued, when asked. "She would have killed more people, if I hadn't." It remains to be seen if the court will agree with her or not._

Henry held the newspaper for a moment, feeling rather sad, even though he hadn't known any of the people. Why _had_ it gotten so out of hand? He had felt rather detached from the people involved when he was focused on solving the puzzle, but whenever he had thought about it, he had rather hoped that Haralda would be detained—and _helped_, because she clearly wasn't quite right in the head—before anyone died.

_ Why do things like this happen?_

"Come on, Henry, so we can get out of here!"

He sighed. There really wasn't any point in dwelling on it. It had happened a long time ago, and he wasn't entirely sure they were even real people. In this town, he couldn't just assume things. Still, he could almost see the bodies…hear the shots fired by the two killers, both of whom thought they were justified…

He started to set it down, but then he paused, turning it over. It _was_ a ceramic plaque, oddly enough. The side opposite the newspaper was carved with the ominous word _Revenger_. He again started to set it down, but something in him was reluctant. Shrugging, he shoved it in the backpack, just in case it would be useful for something in the future.

The way to the exit was uneventful. He was glad to see the sunlight again, even if it was obscured by fog. From the look on Walter's face, he felt the same way. With any luck, they were one step closer to being able to leave Silent Hill.

xXx

The café was crowded, which Eileen thought was strange. It was the late afternoon, approaching evening, and she had never imagined it would be that popular of a place for dinner. She stood in line, thinking about Henry.

The trouble was that he had never spoken to anyone about what had happened. She'd been able to talk to people, even receive counseling, due to her attack by the "Walter Sullivan copycat." It had been difficult at times, to keep the truth hidden, but at least there were people there to help her through some of the trauma. Henry had no one but her. She had seen it wearing on him, day after day, year after year, and yet every time she tried to get him to talk, he would refuse, saying that he didn't want her to have to think about it.

She knew about his nightmares, knew that they were worse than the ones she had, but he seemed ashamed of them. It was as though he had expected the past to simply disappear, so that he could pretend none of it had ever happened. Rather than accept it, he was trying to push it aside, and the result was that it burst through unpredictably and tormented him.

She remembered when they were just about ready to leave South Ashfield Heights…

_ Eileen grabbed the last suitcase and hurried to the door. The sooner she was out of this room, and the entire building for that matter, the better._

_ "What do you want?"_

_ She paused at the door, surprised by the annoyance she heard in Henry's voice. He was usually so calm. She looked through the peephole and saw him in the hallway, confronting Frank Sunderland._

_ "I just wanted to say good-bye," the superintendent replied, sounding confused. "I'm really sorry to see you go, and Miss Galvin, too."_

_ "Yeah, well…we have to."_

_ "I don't know what's been going on lately, but if there's anyway I can help…"_

_ "We don't need your help!" Henry snapped._

_ Eileen winced. Surely he could see that Frank didn't have a lot of responsibility for what had happened. Some of what he had done may not have even been his complete free will at all, if the Otherworld had been influencing things._

_ "Well, I just thought that if there was anything I could do…"_

_ "Actually, there is something—if an apartment has a weird history behind it, tell people before you rent it out to them!"_

_ Frank was quiet for a moment, before finally asking, "You found out about Joseph?"_

_ "Joseph, the man with the blood, the baby—everything!"_

_ "Henry… I don't know what you're upset about, but if anything I did, or didn't do, caused you distress, I'm sorry. I try my best."_

_ "Your best?" he demanded, in response. "Try harder! Couldn't you have done something?"_

_ "About Joseph? I—"_

_ Henry kept shouting over him. "Why didn't you keep checking up, or something? Did you just put it out of your mind when you got home? You had done your good deed, and that was the end of it? You should have checked out the orphanage, Frank!"_

_ "What orphanage?" he asked, uselessly._

_ "They were insane, all of them! It wasn't a good place; how did a place like that manage to stay hidden for so long? He killed people, Frank! You should have checked up; you should have done _something_! Couldn't you have _done_ something?"_

_ Eileen hurried out of her apartment then, grabbing Henry's arm and pulling him away from the bewildered superintendent. She shouted apologies over his increasingly upset ranting, and helped him into her apartment._

_ "I'm here for you, Henry," she whispered. "We should talk about what happened."_

_ He looked at her, whispered, "Couldn't anyone have done something?" and then went silent._

_ And that was the closest he had ever come to talking about Walter Sullivan._

At last, she had reached the front of the line. The man at the counter, whose nametag said "Alf," smiled and asked, "What will it be, ma'am?"

"I'm not actually here to eat," she replied. "I wanted to ask you a question."

He shrugged and nodded. "All right."

"This morning, a friend of mine came here, and I was wondering if anything…unusual…happened."

"A lot of people come here. I can't remember all of them."

"Well, his name is Henry Townshend, and he—"

Alf held up a hand, cutting her off before she could describe him. "Oh. Him. You're another one of his friends. Wonderful."

She winced. "He was that memorable?" It was strange, since he was normally such a quiet person. He had been out of sorts today, but she wondered what he could have done to make such a lasting impression.

"'Is Henry Townshend here yet?' 'I'm waiting for Henry Townshend.' 'Please, don't let Henry Townshend escape without talking to me first.' 'Have you seen Henry Townshend?' Every five minutes…I am never, _ever_ going to forget that name. Then he finally does show up, and…" Alf shook his head.

Eileen stared at him. She had thought Henry had seemed anxious about meeting a friend, but if that was an accurate description, his friend was even worse.

Alf suddenly looked a little nervous. "You aren't going to start staring at my customers, are you?"

_What kind of question is that?_

"Um, no…"

"Attempt to have conversations with them like you've never spoken to another human being in your life?"

"No…"

"Smile at everyone like you're crazy?"

"No…"

He paused. "Oh, so you're more like Henry. You're going to act nice and calm and then suddenly jump up and down and start shouting and waving your arms, right?"

"No!"

"Just checking, in case you were going to start scaring away my customers."

That sounded very worrying. "Look, I'm just afraid Henry's in some kind of trouble. Could you _please_ just explain what happened between him and his friend this morning?"

"Well, everything seemed to be all right, until Henry suddenly jumped up and shouted—" Alf stopped and frowned at her. "Now, wait a minute. How do I know you really are his friend, and that you have his best interests at heart?"

She raised her eyebrows. "If he was shouting, I'm sure it can't be that big of a secret."

"Yes, well, you should have been here to hear it for yourself, then. I value my customers' privacy. I don't pry into their business, no matter how annoying they are, and I don't gossip to any random girl who comes into the café."

She sighed. "Can you at least tell me if you have any idea of where they went?"

"I suppose that would be all right. As they were running out of here, one of them asked for directions to the closest car rental place. That's all I know."

"Thanks."

Eileen hurried out of there, having a reasonably good idea of where the car rental place was. However, when she got there, it appeared to be closed. The lights were on, but the door was locked tight when she tried to open it.

"Hello?" she called. She tried to peer through the window, but it was obscured by what appeared to be an upturned table, a chair, and a clock. "Is anyone in there?"

She walked around the side of the building, hoping to see through one of the other windows. Instead, she merely got a good view of more furniture.

_This just gets weirder by the minute._

She walked back to the door and knocked. "Hello?"

The clock moved, and a face appeared. "We're closed."

"Please, I really need your help."

His face disappeared, and there was silence. She was afraid he was going to ignore her after all, but just as she was about to leave, the rest of the furniture was edged away from the door.

A man stepped out. His eyes kept twitching from side to side, as though he were paranoid. Paranoia would certainly explain the furniture.

"Hello, I'm Eileen," she said, hoping an introduction might calm him down slightly.

"My name's Rich. But if that reminds you of anything, just pretend my name is something else!" he added quickly.

She stared at him. He stared back.

After taking a few deep breaths, Rich finally managed a smile. "How may I help you?"

"Well, I think one of my friends was here earlier today."

His smile vanished. "Oh no."

She bit her lip. Apparently it had been a very interesting day in Ashfield, and not only when Henry was at the apartment. Perhaps he had carried the spade and randomly kicked doors all over the city.

"What do you mean, 'oh no'?"

"Well, there weren't many people here today. I…closed early. There were only two customers, in fact. Not that I mean any offense to them, if they are friends of yours!"

She decided not to comment. "One of them had to be my friend! Was he…err…acting strangely?"

Rich smiled weakly and stepped a little closer to the door of the building. He looked as though he might retreat inside at any moment. "Was your friend the relatively normal, calm one, or was he the…ah…long-haired weirdo freak?" He clapped a hand over his mouth. "I didn't mean it like that! Um, no offense intended towards the other, ah, gentleman, especially if you are his friend."

_Long-haired weirdo freak? Henry's friend is a hippie?_

She shook her head. "No, he has short hair."

He sighed in relief.

"They rented a car from you? Do you know where they were going?"

"Well, they wanted a map to Silent Hill."

"Silent Hill?" she repeated, astounded. Some of the Otherworlds had involved Silent Hill, and she couldn't imagine why Henry would have wanted to go there.

It certainly didn't sound like a logical place to go gardening.

She gave Rich a quick description of Henry, and he confirmed that that was indeed the "relatively normal, calm one" of the pair.

_What did the other one look like?_

She wanted to ask, but she couldn't. The words died on her lips with a horrible fear of what the answer might be. Long hair, crazy smile, scared this man half to death, and had Henry shouting in the café and trying to keep her away.

_That's crazy_, she told herself, before the thought could fully form. It could be anyone other than who she was thinking of. Had to be, really.

But if Rich's answer came close…if his description matched the man whose face still surfaced in her nightmares…then she might never have the nerve to ask the second question. And the second question was more important, because whatever was going on, Henry might be in danger.

"Will you rent me a car?" she asked, letting the first question go unasked. "I need to get something at my apartment, but then I'll be back."

xXx

"I just don't see how we're going to get to the lake," Henry admitted. "Isn't there another way to the Wish House?"

"Possibly the subway."

They stared at the abyss that stretched across Munson Street, preventing them from continuing towards Toluca Lake.

The subway. Even assuming they could get to a subway, the idea wasn't very appealing. In Silent Hill, they probably only had rides to various kinds of death, anyway. Thinking of subways made him think of his first venture into the nightmarish Otherworld, his shocking first encounters with monsters, and of course, Cynthia's death.

He shuddered. He did not want to go into the Silent Hill subway at all, let alone with Walter Sullivan.

He pulled out the map, but to his dismay, none of the other roads north they could get to would help. They all led to the wrong side of the other chasm.

"There's an entrance to the subway near the Wish House?"

"Yes, I think so. It might have been a secret entrance."

With difficulty, Henry forced down the image of the two of them crawling through some dark, blood-drenched passage hidden behind a wall. He hated the idea, but it did have the one bright spot—it meant they would get out of here soon.

"All right," he sighed. "Let's go find the subway."

They turned away from the chasm, walking back the way they had come. Although he kept it to himself, Henry was hoping that the subway would be somewhat difficult to find. They might find an even better way to get there, or maybe Walter would get tired and give up on the search—although he knew that wasn't very likely.

He looked at the map a final time, and noticed a road he had missed the last time. "Hey, we might be able to go up this way, past the hospital!"

Walter didn't even slow down. "No, let's avoid the hospital."

_Great, his feelings towards hospitals are like mine towards subways._

"But if it takes us a while to find the subway, it could start getting late," he began.

"The subway is right over there; I saw it when we got out of the apartments."

Henry groaned and gave up. "Fine."

A Scuttler was waiting for them in front of the subway station. It fell to two shots from the revolver, and then the way was clear. The stairs descended down into darkness, looking nothing so much like a neatly constructed path into the jaws of Hell.

"Wonderful." Henry turned on the flashlight and made sure his weapons were handy. He noticed that Walter had his pipe out and wasn't looking very enthusiastic about this idea, either.

They began to walk down the steps.

xXx

Eileen's thoughts were racing as she walked back to her apartment. Henry wouldn't want her to come after him, that much she was sure of. He needed her to, though. He had become very protective of her, which was sweet, except that it bordered on paranoia.

She remembered the strangest incident, shortly after she had been released from the hospital. She and Henry had been walking together, and on the road ahead of them, a little girl had fallen off of her bicycle. Eileen could never see someone suffering without wanting to help them in some way, so she hurried over and helped her up. Before she could say anything comforting, however, Henry had grabbed her arm and taken off at a run. Moreover, he had refused to explain what was behind that, other than a garbled statement about attracting too much attention.

She might never have understood what that was all about, if she hadn't found him when he was burning the reminders of their time in the Otherworld that he didn't plan on keeping. There were weapons, memos, coins…and there, on top of the pile, was a doll.

As worn, battered, and aged as it was, she recognized it at once. It had been _her_ doll, and she had never expected to see it there. As she opened her mouth to ask Henry how he had gotten it, she remembered why she no longer had it, and then she knew why Henry had been spooked by her helping someone.

It was almost impossible to think that the shivering, homeless teenager she had seen when she was a little girl had grown up to be the Walter Sullivan who had attacked her. She knew, however, when she thought back on it, that it _had_ been him. Stranger still, she hadn't noticed when she was that young, but when she looked back now, she realized that he had seemed oddly afraid, as though he had expected her to hurt him.

But she hadn't hurt him. Had she been the only person who had ever been kind to him?

It was a depressing thought, and she didn't want to think about that now. The point was that she couldn't just stop helping people. If she did that, then it would mean _they_ had won. It would mean Sullivan had won, the Order had won, the priestess who first told him his mother was asleep in Ashfield had won, just as surely as if that demon had really been summoned.

And right now, Henry needed her help, no matter how dangerous it might be.

When she reached her apartment, she got a couple of health drinks and put them in her handbag. She also found a flashlight, since it would be getting dark out by the end of the trip. Then she went into her bedroom and opened the box that she kept under the nightstand.

She looked at the weapons she had for a minute. Finally, she pulled out the chain and put it in her handbag, and picked up the nightstick. They would have to be enough. After changing into clothes appropriate for a trip, she left.

The trip back to the car rental place seemed quicker than it should have been, far too quick, in fact.

Rich looked at her nervously, but said that he had the car ready for her.

"I'll need a map, too," she added, taking a deep breath. "I'm going to Silent Hill."


	9. Chapter 9: The Subway

Chapter 9: The Subway

The abandoned subway made Henry's skin crawl. The hallway they were in looked as though it had been designed to create the largest number of shadows possible. Railings, doors, and alcoves that had once served some practical purpose now were distorted in the meager light he carried. In the distance, he could hear the distinctive sound of a Scuttler moving.

"We better go there," Walter said, pointing to a door. Henry took a look at it and saw that it was labeled "Information."

"Why?"

"For a map."

"Your secret passage is marked on a map?"

He said nothing in response, so Henry kept further comments to himself. The room beyond the door could hardly even be called a room; it contained a desk, a phone, and not much else. Walter used the handgun to bash open the desk drawers and searched until he found a map.

"Got it."

Henry walked back out and froze. Something was waiting for him, and it wasn't a Scuttler.

It was humanoid, and if he had seen it anywhere else, he might have first mistook it for a skeletally thin person in tattered black robes. It was loose, putrid skin, however, hanging down beneath the creature's faceless head, that gave it the momentary illusion of clothing. There was far more of it than there should have been, and it hung in loose flaps everywhere. He had the sudden horrifying thought that perhaps it was another creature's skin. He looked up at the smooth, almost translucent skin where its face should have been, and he felt sure that it could see him anyway.

It began to silently move towards him, one thin hand struggling to break free of the skin joined to its fingers. The blackened, decaying skin billowed slightly as it moved, surrounding it in shadowy folds, and he suddenly had the impression that it was more ghost than corpse, closer to the fallen victims that had haunted him three years ago.

A shot rang out, and the monster faltered as the bullet hit it. Walter fired the handgun four more times before it fell, and then he shot it a few more times.

Henry cleared his mind of the memories of the ghosts—implacably following him as he tried to flee, giving him terrible, debilitating headaches just by being near, grabbing him and reaching inside of him, filling him with the cold chill of death—with some difficulty, and looked at Walter shooting the monster.

_This alliance would be a lot easier if he didn't keep acting crazy._

"Walter, I think it's dead," he finally said.

Walter shook his head, looking dazed, and stopped shooting. "You're right."

Henry looked down at the monster, worried for a minute that it might get up again, like the ghosts. Blood was pooling beneath it, however, and it was entirely motionless.

"What was that all about?" he asked.

"I thought it was—I didn't want it to—that is…" Walter gave up and shook his head. "Always make sure they're dead."

He glanced at it again. "It looks dead to me."

"It is now."

Henry decided it was best not to say anything more about it. They resumed walking through the corridors of the station, alone except for an occasional Scuttler and a few of these new creatures.

_They do remind me of ghosts_, he thought, dispatching another with his spade and thinking about the strange way it had been gliding across the ground.

He looked over his shoulder, not even seeing a crack of light to indicate that the way outside was still behind them. They had hardly been in the subway very long at all, and yet he felt like they had been there forever. A public place like this had a deadening effect when it was abandoned, and he kept thinking back to that other subway, and being trapped in his apartment.

_With ghosts_, he added, belatedly realizing that they had walked right past another one of the creatures, another one of the Specters, as he was beginning to think of them. It either hadn't noticed them or didn't care, and he suspected the latter based on how the faceless head turned to follow them as they left.

Beyond the corridor, the station was vast. Doors dotted the walls, each with streets and locations listed on the wall beside it. If the rest of the space had been open, it would not have been quite so bad, but it was filled with walls and dividers, benches and chairs, counters and stands, and more. There was even a fountain in the center, with a roaring lion's head that had once spouted water. All it lacked was people, and in their absence, he could imagine monsters everywhere.

Even with signs and a map, it looked like a place they could easily get lost in. Walter's familiarity with their destination was little comfort, as he kept glancing at the map, striding over to the door he had selected, and turning back when it proved to be locked. After the fourth door, Henry was worried, not to mention tired of uselessly following behind with the flashlight.

"Oh, here we go," Walter said, when they reached the end of the room, referencing nothing in particular as far as Henry could tell.

Two Specters, having been standing sentinel-like by the wall, advanced towards them. Henry met one with the edge of the spade. Trusting that Walter could handle the other, he focused on his own opponent, as it hissed and dragged its bony nails down his arm. That was the only counterattack it got in, as he finished it with a few, strong blows.

He looked up and saw that Walter was now tapping the wall, with a puzzled look on his face. Henry looked at the wall. It looked the same as all of the other walls they had passed, white fading to gray in color and made to look like pale brick, although the pattern of "bricks" here was bizarre. Some were even different sizes, arranged apparently at random. Listening, it sounded as though it were hollow, as well.

_What do you know, he found his passage!_ He had to admit that he was surprised. It didn't explain why he had tried all of those locked doors, but maybe there was more than one way into the place.

Walter tapped the wall a while longer, and then sighed, "They changed the password."

Henry gave the wall a harder look. "Password?"

"The last time I came through here, it was 'Samael,' but they must have changed it. Enough time has gone by that I suppose it only makes sense."

"How do you even enter a password?"

"You don't see the keyboard?"

His head was starting to hurt. "The what?" He took a step back and frowned at the wall. Now that he knew what to look for, he saw that the pattern wasn't as random as he had originally thought. That odd brick near the bottom was the spacebar, and those over there might be the number keys…

"What do we do now?" he finally asked, getting over his shock. "Look around and hope that someone wrote the password down and dropped it?"

"Sounds good."

Henry rubbed his head, wishing he would wake up and discover that this all had been a particularly wacky dream.

"I'll keep trying passwords, while you see if you can find anything."

"Won't you need the light?"

"Nah, my eyes have adjusted enough that I can make out the layout."

Feeling as though he were on a fool's mission, Henry began searching the station. There was, he realized in dismay, graffiti everywhere, although most of it was doodles and things that could never work as a password.

_Unless the person who wrote it down wrote it in code so only they would remember…_

He refused to think about that possibility any further and kept looking. In addition to graffiti, there were notes everywhere, once he looked. Lying in corners, underneath benches, and sticking out of discarded boxes, he kept seeing bits of paper. He found pieces of diaries, letters, abandoned word games, and more, but nothing that seemed relevant, until…

_Blast it all. The Order will have my head for this. Hahaha!_

The writer's sanity seemed dubious, but it was the first reference to the cult he had found. Continuing on, he looked for a match to the slanted, choppy handwriting found on that piece. His efforts were met with success.

_Who will they send after me? Oh, that's right—no one! I'm in charge now. In charge of the Wish House, in charge of the rituals, in charge of the passwords—everyone must come through me, first!_

Henry redoubled his efforts after seeing "password" written there. It was too much to hope that it was written down somewhere, but then again, this place didn't necessarily conform to the laws of the real world…

_I think I'll take a vacation. I'll just change the password once more before I go. Just in case any of you fools can't remember it, take the devil from the lion's mouth._

He stared at that one for a while. It was undoubtedly the clue he needed, but he wasn't sure what it meant. He hated putting himself lower than the "fools" the writer seemed to be mocking, but the hint didn't seem very helpful to him.

It might have been an Order thing, which did make sense. The writer seemed a touch arrogant, but probably not to the point of making his hint available to just anyone. He'd have to take it back to Walter, and see if he could make any more sense out of the phrase.

On his way, however, he passed the fountain and slowed down. The lion's mouth… Deciding it was worth a try, he stepped into the dry fountain and walked towards the spout. The stone lion seemed to glare ominously as he reached into its mouth. He felt around, but then something struck him in the leg.

He turned and saw a Scuttler, preparing to attack again. He didn't give it the opportunity, smashing it with the spade. When the disgusting, bug-like thing was still, he turned his attention back to the fountain.

His fingers finally brushed paper, and he reached in deeper to try to grab it. Presumably it had been placed so that the water wouldn't touch it. "Lion's mouth, or lion's heart?" he muttered, finally pulling the paper free from where it had been lodged.

_Tribute to an old "friend." He was the **Executioner**, after all._

Seeing the emphasized word, Henry sighed in relief. This had better work. He hurried back across the room, to where Walter was still tapping various bricks.

"—s-p-i-e," he muttered as he tapped the last few. He hit the wall in frustration when nothing happened.

"Try 'Executioner.'"

Walter did so, Henry watching in fascination as he hit the unlabeled keys with only a few seconds worth of consideration for each one. Nothing happened.

He felt a headache coming on again. He couldn't have found those papers for no reason. He couldn't have to go back and search some more. He wasn't sure how much more of this kind of insanity he could take.

"Oh!" Walter cried, hitting a brick and starting again. "I accidentally put caps lock on!"

Henry put his head in his hands, not sure whether he should laugh or cry.

The entire wall moved back and slid open like a door, allowing them passage into the room beyond. It closed behind them again, but there was a conventional handle on this side. Unfortunately, the room was the darkest place in the station yet. The flashlight only lit things up dimly.

"We'll need more light than this to get into the passage," Walter said.

"I thought this _was_ the passage."

"Oh, no, this is the chapel between the station and the passage."

"…I had to ask."

"There's a lamp here, but it must be blown out."

Henry made his way over to the lamp, which was sitting on the edge of a desk, and frowned at it. "Why do we need more light to get out of here, anyway?"

"Because of the lock on the door." Walter pointed to the door at the other end of the wall, which had the most bizarre lock Henry had ever seen. It seemed to be made up of dozens of gears and disks, linked to each other by a series of lenses and mirrors. "Light needs to be shined into it in the proper way, but the flashlight's beam isn't going to be strong enough."

_I'm so glad he didn't put one of _those_ on my apartment door!_

"Henry, may I borrow the flashlight?"

"Sure," he said, shrugging and handing it over.

Walter shone the flashlight around the edge of the ceiling until he located a cabinet. He walked over and opened it. It looked as though the chapel had been stocked with a supply of food, reminding Henry that he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. He recalled asking him to pack some food along with the health drinks, and fervently hoped he had.

He was just about to ask about it, when he noticed what Walter was doing. He would take a can out of the cabinet, shine the flashlight on the label, and then set it back down. After a few, he evidently found some that needed to be shaken before being put away, as well. Henry watched until he couldn't take it anymore.

"Exactly what are you doing?" he demanded.

"I'm looking for a can of light bulbs."

"Light bulbs…don't come in cans…"

"Sometimes they do."

"No. They don't."

"Do you have a better idea?"

Henry gave up on the argument and began thinking. He _had_ to come up with a better idea, because he didn't like the chances of Walter finding a can of light bulbs in that cabinet. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite sure of how to overcome a light-powered lock. With the right tools, they might be able to brighten the flashlight, but they didn't have any, and that might blow out the bulb, anyway.

One of the cans Walter was shaking made a _clink_. He brought it over triumphantly, setting it on the desk next to the lamp.

"Well," Henry asked, "if light bulbs come in cans, where would we find a can opener? No—don't tell me, just use the knife to get it open." He reached into his backpack and got the knife.

Walter took it and cut out the lid of the can. Sure enough, there were at least three light bulbs inside.

_By now, I should just expect these things._

Unfortunately, none of the three light bulbs worked. They both stared at the lamp for a while.

"Maybe it's not the lamp," Henry finally said. "Maybe there's just no power."

"Of course! There's probably a generator in the basement."

"The basement? Well…all right. I'll go turn on the generator. You wait here, and when you have light, start working on that lock." He didn't want to go into the station's basement at all, but he wanted to sit in a chapel of the Order, alone, with no light, even less.

Walter looked doubtful. "Shouldn't we both go to the basement, in case it's dangerous?"

"Only if we can't find a way to communicate between areas. Someone should be here to make sure that the power really does come on." He could easily imagine thinking they had turned on the generator, coming back to find that there was still no power, and repeating the trip several times.

"You have a point."

Henry grinned and almost made a joke about all that wisdom he had received, before he remembered that he was supposed to be the sane one. It had to be the stress of this place.

Walter began looking through the desk.

"If this is a chapel, why is there a desk, anyway?"

"To keep things orderly, I suppose." He waved the flashlight in the direction of the other wall. "There's an altar over there, if you want to go look."

"No thanks."

He avoided even looking in the direction of the altar, while Walter searched the desk's drawers. Finally, he found what he was looking for. He returned the flashlight to Henry, turned over the map of the station, and also handed him a black box.

"A walkie-talkie?"

"I've always wanted to use them!"

"All right. Once I think I've got the generator on, I'll check in." He started to open the door, turning on the walkie-talkie and sticking it in a pocket on the side of his backpack. "And if anything strange happens, I'll let you know." He opened the door completely and took a step out. "And if anything strange happens up here, you should let me know, too."

"You're stalling. Do you want me to go to the basement?"

Rather than answer, he left. He wasn't afraid of going down into the basement. All right, if he was honest with himself, he _was_. According to the map, it wasn't very far. He didn't have a map of the basement itself, and he hoped that was because it was small and easy to get out of. He didn't want it to be _too_ small, though; it was bad enough thinking about how far underground he would be.

_Why does a subway station even _have_ a basement?_

_ Probably to torment people like me_, he answered himself.

He found the door marked on the map, saw unhappily that it was labeled "B" and therefore was probably the right one, and reached for the handle.

The walkie-talkie crackled. "Henry!"

He pulled it free from the backpack, quickly pressing the button to talk. "What?" he yelped.

"Nothing, I just wanted to make sure the walkie-talkies worked."

"Yes, they work," he grumbled, heart still pounding from the sudden alarm. He shoved the walkie-talkie back in the pocket after hearing Walter laughing hysterically—or maniacally, he amended uncharitably—on the other end.

He almost hoped that the door to the basement would be locked. However, it opened quite readily, and he stared at the steep, narrow steps that led down.

_Down…down into a tiny little room, probably filled with monsters, and the door will shut behind you, and…_

"Shut up," Henry told himself, hoping to reinforce it by speaking out loud. The worrying part of his mind quieted, but he couldn't get it to go away entirely. He folded up the map and put it away. He stared into the basement. Finally, he started to walk down the stairs.

The basement was very dark, and he could hardly see a thing as he descended. He shone the flashlight around nervously, desperately wishing the stairs had a banister. Still, while he could see very little, none of what he could see looked threatening. He almost began to relax when the stair beneath his foot gave way.

Henry fell. He yelled and dropped the spade, the flashlight swinging freely from around his neck. He slid roughly down the remaining stairs, and found out that he had been fortunately near the bottom. He hit the floor and sat there for a moment, dazed. That had been bad, and the worst part was knowing that he would have to climb back up those same stairs.

In the darkness, the Specter was almost upon him before he knew what was happening. Its touch was cold before it began digging into his flesh, and he was once again reminded of the ghosts. Not knowing where the spade had landed, he grabbed the revolver and shot it at close range. It fell as silently as it had arrived. He got up quickly and stomped on it to be sure it was dead.

Composing himself, Henry shone the flashlight around to be sure there weren't any more nearby, and then he located the spade. He decided he liked his chances against these things with the revolver better, because he could hit them from a distance, so he put the spade away. He began to look around.

The basement was only one room, fortunately, and it was wide enough that he didn't feel too claustrophobic. Against the back wall was a large machine that looked very much like it had to be a generator. Pleased that he wouldn't have to be there for very long, he hurried across and flipped the switch. A reassuring humming started up, and lights around the basement flickered on.

He pulled out the walkie-talkie. "Okay, I turned on the generator."

There was silence for a few seconds, and then finally a disappointed reply. "The lamp still won't turn on."

"Hmm…" He looked around the basement some more. There were plenty of pipes in the basement, as well as boxes piled against the walls—and a smaller generator, almost hidden behind them.

He walked over to it, pushing the boxes out of the way. Once the switch was within his reach, he flipped it. Like the other one, it began humming. Nothing happened in the basement, and he assumed that the two generators powered different areas.

He pressed the button on the walkie-talkie. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Did that make the power go on?"

"I don't know; it's too dark to tell!"

Henry shoved it back in the pocket, resisting the urge to mutter to himself. He resumed looking around the basement. A few feet to his left, there was a small door, like the sort that might be on a cabinet. He pulled it open, thinking that there might be a fuse box or some sort of control panel behind it.

Then he realized that the basement wasn't only one room, as he had thought. Behind the door was a narrow crawlspace, and when he shone the light through it, he could just barely make out the beginnings of another room.

"Sullivan, I hate you," he said to the walkie-talkie, even though—or possibly because—he wasn't holding the button. He sighed and climbed into the crawlspace.

It was like going through the holes three years ago, only far worse. There was nothing supernatural about it to speed things along or make the journey easier; it was just a tight, suffocating passage to crawl through. On the other hand, it was also shorter, and he was relieved when he finally was able to pull himself out into the next room. He could almost imagine getting stuck on something in there, and being trapped, unable to move his arms back enough to even grab the walkie-talkie…

He shut off that train of thought as quickly as he could. He would have to go back through there, and he didn't need to be unduly worried about it.

The second room was much the same as the first room had been, but one thing caught Henry's eye. One of the boxes was marked with a familiar seal—the Halo of the Sun, as it was called, one of the symbols of the Order. Considering it was their secret room he was trying to light, he went over to the box at once.

When he opened it, he found out that it wasn't actually a box. Instead, it appeared to be some sort of mechanical or electronic device. There were four circles in the center, looking as though they might light up when the machine was on. Each had a lever beneath it. Off to the side was a large button, with a small display beneath it. There was a switch in the corner, currently pointing to _Off_.

There also was a note, on the front of the box that had covered it.

_To bring light to the believers._

"Or to turn on the lamp in the chapel, is that it?" Henry muttered. So, the Order's little section of the station didn't have normal doors or normal locks; why should they have a normal generator, either?

With a sigh, he turned the machine on. The four circles lit up with a clear, white light. Tentatively, he pulled the lever beneath the first circle. It darkened, and then a blue light appeared. A second pull turned the circle red. A third turned it green. He continued pulling the lever, cycling through more colors, until it was white again. He glanced at the button off to the side, and hit it.

On the display below, four circles appeared. The first one was green, and the other three had no color.

He pulled the lever beneath the first circle three times to turn it green, and then he hit the button again.

The four circles appeared on the display, three of them empty. The first one was yellow.

One of the colors in the cycle had been yellow, so he pulled the lever again until the first circle was yellow. He held his breath and hit the button. This time, all four circles on the display were dark.

Henry frowned at it in dismay. It looked like he'd have to experiment. He set the first circle to white again. The display had a green circle first. He pulled each of the levers once, until all four circles were blue. Again, it showed one green circle. Grimacing, he went to the next color, making them all red. All four circles on the display turned up dark.

An idea began to form through his head. He turned all of the circles green, and tried that. Two of the circles came up green in the results. Going through the remaining colors, keeping all four the same color each time, he got only empty circles on the display. When they were back at white, he paused and considered what he had seen.

_One green circle when they're all white. One green circle when they're all blue. Two green circles when they're all green._

He left the first circle at white, changed the second to blue, and made the final two green. The machine answered with two green circles and two yellow.

_Yellow, to indicate two are in the wrong places?_

Deciding to test out that theory, he left the first one at white, and made the other three red. When all four were red, there had been no green lights. This time, he got one green. To be sure, he made the first one red and cycled the second circle through until it was white. He pushed the button and held his breath. It showed him one yellow circle and three empty ones.

A sense of satisfaction filled him. It was a simple matter of trial and error from there to work out the correct positions of the colors. Finally, when the circles were lit up white, green, blue, and green, he hit the button and waited. The display returned with four green circles, and the machine hummed and came to life.

The walkie-talkie crackled. "Whatever you did, that worked!"

Henry grabbed it and responded. "Great! I'll be right up."

"I'll get to work on the lock."

"Okay." He was about to put it away when he remembered his other pressing concern, which had been bothering him more and more as he worked on the puzzle. "You packed food, right?"

"Err, yes. Why?"

"Because I'm hungry!" he shouted, glaring at the walkie-talkie. "Before I go into this passage of yours, I'm going to have lunch. Or dinner. Whatever meal I should be having right now."

There was laughter on the other end. "All right."

Henry couldn't help but smile as he put the walkie-talkie away. He had braved the basement, solved the ridiculous generator, and now he was going to get to eat something. It was almost enough to make him imagine he really was on a fun outing with a friend, like he had told Eileen.

Then he turned around and saw the Specter that had been standing behind him. Nearly jumping backwards onto the generator in alarm—he silently cursed himself for being an idiot; he could only imagine if he had crashed into the generator and knocked out the power again—he pulled out the revolver and shot it. He shot at it as it tried to grapple with him, and when it fell on the floor, he shot it a few extra times as well.

He reloaded the revolver and stared at the monster's corpse, wondering just how long it had been standing there, watching him. The thought gave him the creeps, and he considered firing at it a little more. Then he realized how much he was acting like his less stable companion and put the gun away.

He wondered if they also reminded Walter of the ghosts of his victims, and if that was why he had shot the first one so much.

Slightly shaken, Henry gritted his teeth and convinced himself that he had to go back through the crawlspace, no matter how repellent the idea seemed. He held the walkie-talkie in one hand as he crawled along this time, remembering his fears of being stuck. When he emerged into the first room, he saw Specters looming out of the darkness. All but sprinting to the stairs, he had started up when he remembered the broken one.

He swallowed hard, imagining slipping and falling into the clutches of the monsters. He took a deep breath and forced himself to go slowly. Taking it one step at a time, he carefully checked each first with the flashlight, and then with his foot, before putting his weight on it. The broken one he had to skip all together. All the while, five Specters watched him from the foot of the stairs, just waiting for him to fall.

At last, he made it back up into the station. It was now brightly lit, thanks to the first generators he had turned on, and he switched off the flashlight. He closed the door to the basement firmly, and realized he was shaking.

"Calm down," he muttered to himself as he walked along. "Walter won't let me hear the end of it if he sees how that unnerved me."

Even as he said it, though, he wasn't quite sure how true that was.

When he got to the door, which apparently had closed behind him when he left, he considered tapping out the password. Instead, though, he simply got the walkie-talkie out and asked to be let in. The door slid open at once.

Hurrying in, he saw that Walter had apparently been hard at work with the lock on the other side. All of the devices had been twisted around and shifted, and the door itself was now open just a crack. The lamp was sitting on the floor near it, but the room was now well lit. Even better news came in the form of two sandwiches sitting on the desk next to the backpack. They were somewhat squished, but he didn't care.

He grabbed one, and nodded towards the door. "That must have been hard."

"Oh, not really." Walter grabbed the other sandwich and sat on the floor. "Once I knew what the focal points for the lenses and mirrors were, all I really…"

Henry let him continue talking, but he wasn't really listening. He was interested more in his food, as well as the room they were in. Now that there was a good source of light, he could see more clearly that it was indeed a chapel. Although the side of the room they were on looked businesslike, with its cabinets and desk, the other side of the room had the Halo of the Sun on the wall, some foul-looking candles in iron holders, and a marble altar. The altar had a disturbing discoloration to certain parts of it, and he quickly looked away.

Walter finished his story and sandwich at the same time, and reached into the backpack again. He pulled out another sandwich and a bag of cookies. After a moment, he got out another set of the same things and tossed them to Henry.

He caught them, shaking his head. He had been concerned about health drinks and weapons back at the apartment, when what he _should_ have been concerned about was Walter clearing out his refrigerator. As soon as they got out of here, he'd have to go grocery shopping, and Mr. Sullivan was paying.

The ridiculous bizarreness of that thought almost made him laugh out loud. You could get used to anything, it seemed.

A note on the desk caught his eye. It was written in the same handwriting that the notes outside had been, from the arrogant writer who had hidden the password.

_I'm off to Mexico. It feels good to be in charge. I'm beyond well off, now. I'm untouchable…unstoppable._

"It would be so ironic if he never made it back," Henry muttered, shaking his head.

"Hmm?" Walter gave him a curious look.

"This guy—he must have been a priest of the Order or something, and he ended up in charge. I found notes from him outside, too, and that's how I knew the password. He's just so arrogant about it all. Listen to this." He read the note out loud. "With that kind of bravado, I just thought it would be ironic if he hadn't made it back from his trip."

Walter didn't laugh, or even crack a smile, for that matter. After a little while, Henry realized that he was staring at his food as though it no longer tasted good.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"He never did make it back from his trip."

"What?"

"He was a priest of the Order, known for unsavory activities among the others, but in good standing with the public. He took advantage of the other deaths among the priesthood to seize power. They found him dead at the bottom of a cliff in Mexico; it would have been ruled an accident, except that the numbers '14121' were carved into him."

"Oh." Henry looked down at his food and realized that his no longer tasted good, either. "Well…it sounds like he was a pretty nasty guy, before you, err…before…before he died."

"Does that make it any better?"

"I…I don't know."

An uncomfortable silence descended over the room, and Henry endured it for a while before finally setting aside his food. "We better keep going."

Walter stood up without saying anything.

Once they had all of their stuff together, Henry opened the door. The hallway beyond was still dark, so he turned on the flashlight. They stepped out, and two things happened to give him a sinking feeling.

The first thing was that when he shone the light around, he noticed that the hallway was not at all normal. The wall right across from the door had a skull mounted on it, and bloodstains were visible on the floor. The walls had the rusty color and disturbing decor that signified the Otherworld.

The second was that Walter looked around at the passage he had been hoping to find and said, "Huh."


	10. Chapter 10: Fire Forged

_Note: This week's chapter title was inspired by the trope on TV Tropes._

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Chapter 10: Fire Forged

Henry remained very calm, which was not an easy thing to do in the forbidding Otherworld hallway. "Is something wrong?"

"Well, it's just that none of this is familiar at all."

"It's the Otherworld. Could that be why you don't recognize it?"

Walter looked doubtful, but he nodded. "It could be."

The Order had outdone itself with the macabre decorating. It seemed to reach extremes even for them, and Henry wondered if it usually looked more normal. The chapel seemed positively cheerful in comparison to this place, where skulls grinned everywhere, having been nailed into the walls every few feet. Bloodstains marked the floor in irregular streaks, as though bodies had been dragged through the passage. As soon as he took a few steps forward, a terrified shriek rang out from somewhere around them.

They both stopped dead.

"Did you hear that scream?" he asked, at the same time that Walter demanded, "Did you hear that laughter?"

They stared at each other.

Finally, Henry said, "That's not how people laugh."

"Whatever you heard, I didn't hear it." He gripped his hair. "It was the same laugh I heard back in the apartments…"

After a moment, they began to edge forward again, more cautiously. It seemed as though the flashlight was failing; the corridor seemed to get darker with each step they took. There was no sign of any monsters yet, but unidentifiable noises came at random, filling Henry's mind with all manner of horrible things.

Just as they were approaching the first corner, a woman's voice cried out, "No! Turn back!"

"Did you hear that?" Henry asked. He wondered if she was the same one whose scream he had heard earlier. The voice hadn't sounded quite right, but there was something familiar about it.

"Yes. I think we should listen."

"You do?" He looked over and was surprised to see how pale Walter was.

"That sounded like—if she's—I'm not going into another one of those rooms—seeing him was bad enough—I…" Apparently giving up entirely on forming a coherent sentence, Walter turned around and started walking back towards the chapel.

A little bewildered, Henry followed. Unless there was now another way through the subway, they'd have to go the other way, past the hospital. He was pleased enough to be getting out of the station, although it did seem as though they had gone through a lot to get this far to just leave. The thought that whatever waited ahead was enough to spook Walter Sullivan made him walk a little faster. Wasted time or not, leaving was a very good idea.

Unfortunately, when they returned to the door to the chapel, it was locked. Rattling the handle accomplished nothing, which was the same result as shooting at the lock and hitting the door with a steel pipe.

_I think we're going to have to keep going_, he thought, but he didn't want to be the one to say it out loud.

"We'll have to keep going," Walter said, turning away from the door. He looked as though he were going into another one of those states of forced calm. "Who was it that yelled, anyway?"

"It was probably a trick of the town, to scare us."

"It wasn't someone you knew?"

Something in the voice had been familiar, but he couldn't place it. Every time he tried, he felt a wave of panic, like he was back in his nightmares. So, he simply shook his head, "No." It couldn't have been. They were the only two in the town, after all.

"Those notes you found from Archbolt must be making me imagine things." He shook his head. "Let's go."

As they continued forward, Henry braced himself for a repeat of the screams and warnings, but none came. When they reached the corner, he slowed at the same time that Walter hesitated, and then they both rounded it at once.

A Scuttler jumped for them almost immediately, slicing at them with its legs. It was the only one, however, and a lone Scuttler, even one lying in ambush, couldn't stand up to both of them.

The hallway beyond was much the same as the one they had left, complete with skulls and blood. Halfway down it, however, a Specter separated from the shadow that had been hiding it. It glided forward, skin flying out behind it like some hideous cloak, and Henry felt his head start to hurt, just as though it really were one of the ghosts. The hallway suddenly seemed confining, and he knew he needed to escape. His thoughts were beginning to blur the way they had in the shrinking room, and as he struggled to keep a grip on past versus present, he darted forward to attack the Specter.

Walter grabbed him and pulled him back roughly, just as a gigantic blade came crashing down from the ceiling. The Specter was sliced in two, not even having enough time for a dying cry before its blood splattered.

_That almost was me_, Henry thought, staring at the gruesome mess. He realized he was shaking. "Thanks," he managed.

"It's the least I could do, after how many times I tried to kill you."

He managed a weak smile. "I guess we should keep going."

They continued at a much more cautious pace, although they encountered no further blades. Henry pulled out the revolver so that he could attack any monsters from a distance. He noticed that Walter had put away the pipe in favor of the handgun, having had the same sort of thought.

The passage so far lacked doors, being a single hallway that twisted and turned. After a while, the floor developed a slight slant, taking them deeper and deeper underground. The flashlight continued to help less and less, until it almost seemed as though the darkness was mocking them for trying to see through it. The walls also grew grimmer and grimmer; at times Henry caught a glimpse of something odd and swung the flashlight towards them to see messages written in blood. At first they were only vague statements of death, but the further they went, the more bizarre, if still confusing, the writing became.

_The Executioner has come._

_He knows no mercy, feels no pain; he built a world, a nightmare to gain._

_Hate fills this lonely cell, and crime undoes a crime._

"Are they trying to tell us something?" Henry asked. "Does this have something to do with the password into the chapel?"

"Knowing who wrote the note you found the password on, I think it almost certainly was a final, mocking reference to Jimmy Stone. These, however…that doesn't make as much sense…"

_Sinners' blood and vengeance's stand; darkness cut by darkness's hand._

The walls around the next corner were surprisingly clean, and Henry's attention was drawn to the statue that took up most of the center. He shone the light on it, and as they cautiously approached, he began to make out details. Of all things, it appeared to be a statue of a medieval knight, carved from a single piece of black rock. The only piece that was different was the dagger at the knight's hip, which was silver and gold, with a green gemstone in its hilt, and looked as though it might be real. An inscription on the blade read, _"The fine line…"_ The knight was holding his stone sword in front of him, as though ready to attack. It looked completely out of place in the Otherworld, and Henry wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

"Was one of your victims a knight?" he finally asked.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive! I'm not_ that_ old!"

Henry stared at him for a moment, and then the bizarreness of the conversation hit him. He started laughing, and the more he laughed, the funnier everything seemed. Eventually he had to sit down at the base of the knight, wiping away the tears that were filling his eyes. Here he was, asking Walter Sullivan if he had ever killed a knight, as though it were the most natural question in the world. And he was asking it in the middle of a hellish hallway connected to the subway station of Silent Hill, no less. It was all just so insane.

The craziest part was that he would never be able to tell anyone. The only person who would have a chance of believing him was Eileen, and he couldn't tell her. He wondered if he'd be able to keep his story straight when she tried to ask him how his day went. He suspected he wouldn't. He foresaw another long future of nightmares ahead of him, but for some reason, that seemed very funny.

His life just seemed to be full of these awful twists of fate, once he thought about it. He threw a glance vaguely upwards. _Someone up there hates me._

To his great embarrassment, his laughter almost broke completely into sobs. Oh, he hated this place. He hated this town. Yet he was trapped now, just as surely as he had been trapped three years ago, and the nightmare just kept getting worse. Nightmare…yes, it was like a nightmare, only one from which he couldn't wake up, because he wasn't sleeping.

"Henry…are you all right?"

He laughed. "No."

Walter squatted beside him. "I should have come alone. I'm really sorry, you know. For dragging you into this…and, well, for everything else."

He looked up, and was surprised to notice for the first time that that there really was deep, genuine guilt in Walter's eyes. He realized that, despite everything that had been happening, he had doubted his sincerity. He had believed in his quest to find his mother, but all of the other stuff about wanting redemption and forgiveness, he had assumed was somehow not quite real. In the moments when he almost forgot who he was, things were different, but then he remembered and the wariness returned. How could someone have been that crazy, that evil, and then just do a turnaround?

_What do I know about what might happen to a person after death?_

With a sigh, Henry got to his feet. He felt a little better. Nightmare world or not, at least he wasn't facing it alone. "We better keep going."

Walter got up as well and silently followed.

Once they had made it some distance from the knight, the bloody messages returned. The previous ones had been dried and cracking, but now they were fresher—still wet, still dripping onto the floor. These new writings were similar to the past ones, but they had certain differences in the way they were presented.

_You made yourself an Executioner._

_Know no mercy if you feel no pain; you created a world, but it's a nightmare you gained._

_Only hate exists here now, and who were you to name their crimes?_

After a while, Henry stopped shining the light on the messages. He was beginning to suspect they were talking about Walter, in some odd sense. At the very least, he felt they were intended to make him feel guilty, and from the look on his face, it was working a little too well.

Specters and Scuttlers haunted the hall, but they were easily taken down by a few well-aimed shots. Occasionally, a scream rang out, and Henry wondered if he had been right when he said the voices were only there to frighten them away.

Finally, the passage came to an end. The door at the end was thick and solid, but reassuringly free of disturbing messages. A green gemstone sat at the top, along with the written words, _"…walked by any revenger."_

"The knight," Henry said, pointing to the stone. "The dagger."

Walter, however, was staring at the door and didn't even seem to hear him. He was looking at it with an intensity that was downright disturbing.

"Is something wrong?" He waited what he considered a reasonable amount of time for an answer, and then finally said, "Err, I'll be back."

On his way back to the statue of the knight, Henry found himself wondering just how far underground they had gone. They were trying to get to the Wish House, after all, and it only now occurred to him that that might mean going under Toluca Lake. He shivered, slightly unnerved by the thought of all that water above him.

He knew it was somewhat irrational, the way these things bothered him. He had never been a particularly claustrophobic person in the past. Being trapped in Room 302, though, had done something to him. It seemed just too easy to think of these things, and imagine how easily everything could go wrong. A fear of being trapped was like the habit of checking the door every morning. It had become a part of him.

It occurred to him that he hadn't even realized he had _become_ claustrophobic until this day. He wondered how many other changes had happened to him without his knowing.

Unbidden, Eileen's face came into his mind. Protectiveness of her had always seemed like a good thing, but had he ever taken it to extremes? He began to wish he had taken time to talk to her, to help her deal with the memories from three years ago, rather than trying to avoid talking about them at all costs.

_Was it really her I was trying to protect, or is it me who is afraid of the past?_

He sighed and tried to dismiss the thought, because he had reached the statue of the knight. He looked again at the dagger, seeing both the gem and the description that marked it as the brother to the door up ahead. He wasn't sure how it would help open the door, but by this point, he was beyond questioning such things. He reached out and pulled it free.

It came easily, but then the statue let out a groan, as though the knight were alive and protesting the theft. Although he would have expected that his taking of the dagger might affect that area, it was the top of the statue that began to crumble. From the helm down, the knight began to break into pieces, and as each fell, it also broke. More and more, the statue crumbled, until there was nothing left but a blanket of black dust on the floor.

"What the hell?" Henry whispered, staring at the empty space where the knight had stood. He hadn't been expecting that at all.

When he returned to the end of the passage, he found Walter just as he had left him, staring at the door. With a shrug, he stepped forward to see if there was any logical way to use the dagger. Above the doorknob, there was a slit that looked just the right size for the knife's blade.

"You still don't hear it, do you?"

He jumped.

"The laughter," Walter said. "You don't hear it."

"No… I don't." He glanced at the door uncertainly.

"Open the door."

Henry stuck the dagger into the opening and heard a _click_ from inside. Bracing himself for the worst, he turned the knob and pulled the door open.

It looked like a normal room.

That in itself threw him for a moment. Of all things, he hadn't been expecting that. This place didn't even look like it was a part of the Otherworld. He stepped in cautiously, seeing no sign of anything dangerous. It was a small room, and he didn't really understand what it was doing _there_, of all places, but its existence was the strangest thing about it. There was a coat rack in one corner, with a red jacket hanging from it, a small end table containing a picture of what looked like a woman and her father, and a couch with a ragged, gray pillow on it. The door at the end of the room was fitted with a silver padlock, but he could see the glint of a key in the jacket's pocket.

He hurried over to the jacket and pulled out the key. That was certainly easy enough. When he went to the door, it fit, too. After unlocking the door, he stared at it for a moment. It was too easy, in fact. He had come to expect worse things than this from the town, and he couldn't imagine it was just giving them a break.

"Henry…"

He turned around quickly, alarmed by the distance in Walter's voice.

Walter was kneeling by the couch. He looked distraught. "Why did I do it, Henry? Why did I kill them?"

_I wish he wouldn't keep asking me these questions I can't answer!_

He approached him cautiously, not sure of what to say. "Well," he said, choosing his words carefully, "you thought it would let you be with your mother…"

"It wasn't just like a job, you know. I did terrible things…"

_God, what can I possibly say to that?_

Walter reached out to touch the pillow, which Henry now realized wasn't a pillow at all. It was a tiny, dead kitten. "Steve Garland was my fourth victim. He ran a pet shop, you know. There was no reason for me to kill the animals. Oh, they were making a horrible ruckus, but it only got louder when I started. I mean, I had Garland's heart; I could easily have just left. They were soft, and innocent, and I hated them for it. I killed them in terrible ways. They made such noises when they died. I…" He broke off and made a noise that might have been a sob. Scooping up the dead kitten carefully, he cradled it against his heart.

Now Henry really didn't know what to say. He felt very cold, and distinctly uncomfortable. He knew that Walter had been a murderer, and killing animals—even in torturous ways—was not the same as killing human beings. It had such brutality, though, saying something about the unfeeling hatred that had gone into the action, that it made his skin crawl. He wished he hadn't heard that confession.

_Who else could he tell, though, really?_ Everything kept going back to that, didn't it? There were very few people in the world that could ever help Walter with these things, because so few knew the truth about him.

Walter was clinging to the kitten like it was all he had left, gently stroking the limp, thin body, and staring at it like he wanted to beg it for forgiveness. Henry realized he hadn't quite believed Walter was capable of the gentleness with which he was treating the dead kitten. It made it all the more difficult to watch.

"It's all right," he said. He considered how that sounded and admitted, "Okay, it's not all right. None of it was all right, and I think we both know that. It's in the past, though, and we have to come to terms with it. If you give up now, this will all have been for nothing."

Walter looked up at him. "What do you mean? I came here to find my mother."

"I think there's more to it than that."

He didn't say anything for a while. Finally, he carefully laid the kitten back on the couch. The way he arranged it, it might have only been sleeping. He stood up and stared down at it unhappily. Then he turned around.

"You…you really think there's a chance…for redemption…for me?"

Henry looked away for a second, and then he met his gaze, startled to be able to answer the question. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Walter's expression was unreadable, but he didn't look quite as lost as he had a minute ago. There was some degree of hope in his eyes.

"Come on," Henry said, walking over the door. "We've got to be almost out of here by now."

He opened the door, stepped into the hallway, and felt his stomach flip. The hallway was still Otherworldly, and it was very crowded. Scuttlers climbed over one another to get to the prey they had just noticed, skittering across the ground. Specters moved around them, as silent as ever, reaching out with bony hands. He didn't think they could fight them all, but he didn't like the chances of dodging them, either. At the other end of the hallway, he could see the next door.

"We're going to have to fight our way through," Walter said, pulling out his pipe.

_At least he's got his confidence back._

They started forward cautiously, Henry readying the spade and gripping it tightly. The monsters had stopped their frantic movements and now were standing still—content, it seemed, to wait for the foolish humans to come to them.

The first line of Scuttlers charged. He swung the spade into the ones closest to him, noticing as he did so that some from the outer edges of the hallway were circling around to come at them from behind. He spun, hitting them quickly, then turned to concentrate on the new ones approaching. Spindly legs and bleeding bodies seemed to be everywhere. As they inched forward, he had the sudden, horrifying thought that they would soon be in a sea of Scuttlers.

_We might _drown_ in a sea of Scuttlers._

The idea of them closing over his head, lashing out with their sharp little legs, was almost more than he could bear. He increased the speed with which he swung the spade, praying he wouldn't run out of energy before they were through. Things seemed to be going in their favor; they were both slowly moving forward.

Then the Specters attacked.

Cold hands were digging into his skin before he knew what had happened. He yelled and threw the creature off, hitting it with the spade as a Scuttler jumped towards him. The two monster types worked well together as a team. The Specters were tough, not implacable, but not easily beaten down, and the Scuttlers had a terribly insectoid advantage in the strength of numbers.

He fought off the monsters trying to latch onto him and then came to a horrible realization. They were surrounded. The monsters had been spreading out, some fighting while others moved, and now there were just as many behind them as in front of them, and many on the other two sides as well.

He froze, seeing enemies coming from everywhere. This was it, wasn't it? He was going to die here, torn apart by these horrible creatures.

"Henry, go! I've got your back!" Walter pushed him forward and spun around.

With the reassuring presence of an ally at his back, Henry began fighting again. Back-to-back, they worked their way through the horde of monsters, sending Scuttlers and Specters alike to their dooms.

It was a far more defensible position to fight in, and the monsters held back slightly, not as sure of themselves now. With their enemies' backs no longer vulnerable, they couldn't keep throwing them off balance like before. Henry felt a surge of confidence as the monsters faltered. They might get out of this after all.

A trio of Specters moved forward, confronting him as one, and a wave of Scuttlers followed. It seemed that they were trying to overwhelm him. As he focus on hitting the Specters and knocking away the Scuttlers, one of the Specters slipped past his attacks and grabbed onto his shirt. Rather than trying to get at flesh, it pulled at him, and he saw that they were now trying to separate him and Walter.

_Descend upon us each separately, will they?_

He brought up his knee sharply, forcing it away. He almost lost his balance, but regained it in time to fend off his latest attackers. He looked up and was relieved to see that the door was nearby. He was tiring out.

Blood was everywhere, some from them, but most from the fallen monsters. The floor was becoming slippery, and the stench was heavy in the air. Henry started to feel slightly ill, and he had to consciously make the decision to keep swinging the spade. His theories about what the monsters would do to them if they failed helped to encourage his fighting spirit.

At last, he reached the door. His fingers closed around the doorknob, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He turned it.

It wasn't locked. Gasping a sigh of relief and gratefulness, he pulled the door open and stumbled inside. Walter backed in behind him, crushing a final Scuttler with the pipe, and slammed the door shut on the remaining monsters. They could be heard on the other side, scrabbling to get through, but the door held.

The new room was empty, but surprisingly well lit. It had nothing in it except for three doors—the one they had just come through, and two others. The fourth wall was bleeding. As he watched, words began to appear.

_Some were innocent  
__Some were guilty  
__But you were never their judge_

Henry shook his head and looked away from that message. Surprisingly, given how far they had descended by this point, he could feel fresh air coming through the cracks in the door across from him.

"Let's get out of here," he said, starting for it.

"Wait." Walter was staring at the other door, which sat across from the bleeding words. "I can hear her in there. She's calling my name."

He gave him a flat stare. "What?"

"My mother! Of course, so many things began for me in the subway!"

"No. Think this through rationally." He took a deep breath. "The last time this happened, it was a trap. Why should it be any different this time?"

"I don't know. But what if it really is her? I can't just leave…"

Henry sighed and dug out some more handgun ammo to give him. He had to be running low. "I'm coming too, this time, though."

"Thanks."

Walter opened the third door and took a step inside. He reached behind him, as though to hold the door open, but it slammed shut.

Within seconds, it had faded, not leaving anything to indicate there was ever a door there. Stunned, Henry was once again left staring at a blank wall.


	11. Chapter 11: Reflection of Pain

Chapter 11: Reflection of Pain

Somehow, the door opened up onto a platform of the subway station.

Walter didn't question it, and he didn't call out this time. He regarded the room suspiciously, particularly once the door had slammed shut of its own volition and disappeared, and he made sure his weapons were well within reach. He was pretty sure he was walking into a trap.

He really wasn't looking forward to this battle. He was exhausted from their race through the masses of monsters that had blocked the hallway. It had drained him physically as well as psychologically; he had just started to feel better before that, and then _they_ were all there, scuttling and bleeding across the floor, as though trying to swamp him with the memories of his own bloody hands. The battered flesh of the walls hadn't helped. There was a constant pain in his left arm, as well. Even if he and Henry had known what they were doing when they tried to splint his wrist, he still shouldn't have been using it as often as he had. He had a tiny sliver of hope that his mother really was here, and they could simply leave, but he didn't expect that.

There was nothing in the area to call attention to itself, but he remembered how normal the apartment room had appeared at first. The trains nearby were still and dormant, and everything was quiet except for the soft humming of the lights. The whispering of his name had stopped entirely.

He almost missed the figure leaning against the wall, until it moved.

For a moment, it looked almost normal, and then it flickered, shifting into something else. He remembered the shout that had tried to turn them back, and whose voice he had thought it was, even if Henry said he didn't recognize it. He knew, now, that he had been right.

The monster walking towards him was undeniably female. A twisting curtain of black hair was its only covering, barely concealing curves that would have been sensuous, if not for the pallid, sickly appearance of the flesh. Streaks of blood added color to the skin, from the thin legs that carried it jerkily towards him, to the edges of the hands that were transformed, impossibly, into pale knives. It was bent backwards into a painful position, but its head was up, staring at him. As monstrous as the rest of the apparition was, the eyes were still human.

The eyes were still Cynthia Velasquez's eyes.

He raised the handgun and hesitated. He didn't like this. He didn't like it at all. It was bad enough that he'd had to deal with the other monsters in the subway. Gliding along with their tattered skin, looking for all the world like they were wearing black robes of the Order, he had thought of them as the Priests from the moment he first saw them. Stone, Rosten, and Archbolt, coming back to haunt him, and all the while, the walls themselves reminded him that he'd had no more right to kill them than he had the others.

Now, it was _her_.

It wasn't the same as with them, or at least, no one would view it as being the same. What was her crime? Dashing the confused hopes of a teenager in the subway station was hardly something that could compare against the actions of the priests of the Order or the prison guards. And yet…

He had hated her for the way she had made him feel. He'd hated her with an intensity that collapsed upon itself and ran into his distorted feelings for his true mother, then exploded all over again when he tried to deal with females throughout the years. By the time he had reached her on the list of the 21 Sacraments, he had known that she would be the one who was hurt when they met again.

The monster was still coming towards him. That was what he had to keep in mind, that it was a monster. What was in the past was in the past, and he couldn't do anything about it now. This thing was just an abomination created from his memories, and it was going to kill him.

He fired the gun.

The bullet hit, and blood flew, but the creature faltered only slightly. He shot a second time and darted to the side, wanting to have space behind him to move. He would kill this thing with the handgun if he could, keeping out of the range of those knife-hands.

For a while, they fell into a pattern. He would shoot, and move out of the way as it approached him. Once he was in the clear, he would shoot again. It seemed to be working, and since he saw nothing else in the room that could cause him difficulty, he felt more confident about the battle.

Then the monster began to scream. It was a high, unearthly shriek it let out, making his head feel like it was about to split apart. He resisted the urge to clap his hands over his ears, deciding that enduring the pain had to be a better option than accidentally dropping his weapons. Still, it didn't relent, and his concentration wavered.

It was enough for it to reach him. In a flurry of motion, it attacked, once-delicate hands slicing into his chest. He pulled away before too much damage could be done, but blood was already seeping into his clothing. He retaliated by shooting it. He might have had enough time for a second shot, but he was put off by the way it was looking at him with those too-human eyes.

_Stop it! Just kill it!_

He dropped beneath its questing arms and rolled out of the way. He moved to a safer area, reloading the gun as he did so. Some troubled part of his mind couldn't help but ask if he was counseling the action he was because it was a monster, or because he had killed before and easily could again.

_ That doesn't matter now!_

Frustrated, he shot the monster several times in succession. He hated this, and everything about it. Unfortunately, while shooting rapidly eased his anger, it allowed the creature to close the distance between them again. Once more, the blades flew rapidly towards him.

He noticed there was no easy way to evade it, and in one fluid motion, he put away his gun and pulled out the steel pipe. Holding it like one might hold a quarterstaff, he parried. He almost expected the blades to bend, as though they really were hands, but they met the pipe with force and pulled away to strike somewhere else.

Keeping his two-handed grip on the pipe, he spun it as necessary to counter the monster's attacks. His left hand protested the entire time, but he forced himself to keep it up. One blade escaped his attention, sneaking through his defenses to nick his shoulder; he countered by driving the pipe up under the creature's chin.

It screamed in pain, and then it transformed that cry into another wail like the one before. It paused only a second, and then it came at him again, still screaming as the knives flurried.

His parries were weaker this time, as the sound pounded at his skull and tried to force him to submit. Grimly seeing how it was trying to overcome him, he let the pipe drop from his hands and grabbed the monster's arms instead. He grappled with it, keeping its hands away from where they could do damage.

The monster toppled backwards, and he let momentum carry him with it. He was bigger than it, and as long as he could keep the knives away from him, he would have the advantage in a close-quarters fight. As they crashed to the floor, he felt his left arm begin to weaken. Pain was lancing through it, and he knew he couldn't keep the monster pinned like this forever.

He held the monster down, using his weight to keep it where it was. He stared down at it as it struggled and screamed, looking at the knives and wishing it were a normal opponent that he could at least disarm.

_ Disarm…_

He pulled himself forward until he was able to straddle the creature, kneeling on its arms instead of holding them. Letting go of its wrists allowed it to begin stabbing at the sides of his legs, but it didn't have enough room to reach anywhere else. He ignored the cuts it was making, and reached into his coat for the knife Henry had given him earlier to open the can of light bulbs with.

Pulling it out, he grabbed its wrist again with his aching left hand, and with his right hand stabbed the knife down into the monster's arm. Its scream became a cry of pain, as he began to hack at its flesh. It was grisly, but necessary. He felt the knife hit bone and knew he had enough strength to ensure the monster lost one of its weapons.

_ He saw her at the end of the hallway. She turned around when she saw him, and her eyes narrowed in surprise. There was no recognition in her face. Of course, she wouldn't remember him. Why would she? But he had never forgotten her, not once in all the years since he had tried speaking to her._

_ He pulled out his knife and looked at the way the blade glinted in the dim lighting of the subway station. A smile made its way to his lips. He would give Cynthia something to…remember._

Walter's breath caught at how vivid the memory was, playing so clearly in his mind that reality around him had seemed to fade for a moment. The monster, noticing his distraction, began to struggle harder, slicing viciously with its free arm. He renewed his efforts on the first arm. He couldn't afford to start thinking about things like that now!

No matter how easily they were coming to mind, especially with the creature watching him with her hate-filled eyes…

_Her eyes widened in fear. She had seen the knife, then, he assumed. She turned and ran. He waited a minute, wanting her to falsely think she had a chance. Then he began to run as well, giving chase through the subway._

_ Some distance ahead, she had stopped. She was shouting for help from someone, and he remembered that the Receiver of Wisdom, Henry Townshend, was here, as well. He was too far away, though; he would never make it in time to help her._

_ "Cynthia," he whispered._

_ She turned and saw him. For a moment, they stared at each other. Then he took a step forward, and she began running again._

He got the creature's arm off with some difficulty. His hands were covered in blood, and he realized he was breathing harder than he should have been. His breaths were coming too quickly, as a part of his mind cried out in horror and revulsion at the surfacing memory.

He tried to steady himself, aware that he was losing a lot of blood from the monster's repeated attacks on his leg. He switched the knife into his left hand, reached down, and forced its blade away from him.

_ She couldn't run fast in her high heels, and he quickly overcame her. She screamed as he caught up with her and reached around with one hand to hold her fast, pressing the knife against the back of her neck with the other._

_ Cynthia turned around to face him at his coaxing. She kept a brave face on, despite the cold blade at her throat. He regarded her, victim 16, his Temptation, beautiful Cynthia, and part of him wished things could be different. Part of him wondered if things still could be._

_ He pushed that thought away with cold ease that had developed over the years. He could afford no such thoughts, not if he was going to be with Mother again._

_ "Who are you?" she asked, keeping her voice steady, as though she still thought she might gain control over the situation._

_ "My name's Walter Sullivan." He smiled and dug the blade in against her skin, just slightly. "I spoke to you once before."_

_ If she remembered him now, he wasn't sure anymore. Her voice shook this time when she spoke. "What do you want?"_

_ He continued to smile silently for a few moments, as though he were thinking about his answer. He withdrew the knife from her throat, still holding her fast. He wanted her to feel that same uncertainty, where fear begins to give way to an edge of hope, as he had felt upon speaking to her for the first time. There had been a moment when he had been certain—certain!—that she felt something for him, that his trembling effort would be rewarded by kindness._

_ He remembered her cruelty and drove the knife viciously into her stomach. "I want you to die," he finally answered._

As he struggled to clear his mind of the terrible images, the monster—_or am I the monster?_ a part of his mind screamed in confusion—took advantage of it and broke free of his grip. It wasn't screaming anymore, but his head hurt just as badly as if it was. He tried to get to his feet, wondering where his knife was and when he had dropped it.

He blinked several times, hoping to clear his vision at the very least. What he saw was the monster lurching towards him, swinging its good arm with a manic fury. He fumbled for his pipe and remembered that he had dropped it earlier.

The monster's hand struck his face, cutting a gash down his forehead. Warm blood began to trickle into his eye.

_ Cynthia gasped and screamed in pain as he pulled the knife free. Her blood dripped onto the floor. She tried to get away, but he stabbed her a second time. Staggering backwards, she fell to the floor._

_ He was already there, catching her almost as though there truly was something between them. He knelt, holding her against him and supporting her head with his hand. She was so warm. She coughed, and blood came out._

_ "Let me go," she whispered weakly. "I'll…I'll…"_

_ He pressed the knife against her cheek and shook his head. "There's nothing you can do."_

Reaching up, he tried to wipe the blood out of his eye, but the monster was still there, knife flying. It attacked him like a possessed thing, as he desperately tried to remember what weapons he still had.

Handgun, he still had the handgun somewhere in his coat. He tried to reach for it, but instead had to throw out his arms for balance, as he nearly fell backwards. The pain was becoming too much; he was starting to feel dizzy.

He reached into the almost-forgotten backpack instead. They had packed enough things, after all, and surely one of those ampoules would help in the immediate future.

_He took the knife in a deadly trail down her cheek, under her chin, and lower onto her throat. She was shaking, but she was too weak to put up any sort of struggle now. Occasionally her mouth moved, but he only had to look into her eyes for her to leave her plea unspoken._

_ The knife reached the curve of her breast and he stopped, letting the point linger there. Her breath caught sharply, and she began to speak again._

_ He didn't wait to see what she had thought of to move him this time. He drove the knife in to make the first cut, and her words became a cry of pain._

_ 1…_

_ He started on the six and noticed that Cynthia was sobbing now, tears of pain and fear mingling with her blood. When he had finished carving the numbers marking her as one of his Sacraments, he stared into her face again. For just a moment, he wondered how things might have been, if she had reacted to him differently all those years ago. If she had accepted him...offered him at least a hand of friendship._

_ Then he remembered how she _had_ reacted, and the things she had said to him, and he stabbed the knife into her chest. She screamed, and he pulled it out again. He had hurt so terribly after she rejected him, feeling the burn of her words for days, feeling worthless and entirely unloved; he had ached inside so completely that it was nearly a physical pain, tearing him apart; the only thing that could ever, ever make it right again was if she felt the same degree of pain._

_He stabbed her again, and then again. Over and over again, he drove the blade into her. Blood flew everywhere, and he realized that they both were weeping now. Pain, he wanted her to feel the pain that he had felt; he would hurt her until there was no doubt that she had felt it. These thoughts filled his mind with a red haze as he viciously completed his task._

_ She was still alive, but he pushed her away from him at last, letting her drop to the ground. Now, she would lie there and suffer in the final, agonizing minutes of her life. He hoped she had finally remembered him._

_ He turned around and walked away without a backward glance. Sixteen down. The end was near._

The stab of the needle and dangerous surge of adrenaline snapped Walter back to reality. He found the handgun at last and shot the monster. It tried to attack, but he kept shooting. He would kill it. He had to kill it.

Just when he thought that it wouldn't be enough, and that he would die here, killed by the creature's remaining knife, it staggered backwards. He shot it once more, and it fell backwards. In death, its eyes did not look so much like Cynthia's, and he was able to retreat somewhat from the memory of murdering her.

Then mocking laughter reached his ears, and he shuddered, not even trying to find its source this time. Whoever it was, they knew what he had done, didn't they? That was why they laughed at him, as he dreamed of atoning.

The door had reappeared. Walter located his knife and pipe, grabbing them both, and then he staggered gratefully over to the door. He had to live…although why, he was not quite sure.

_To find Mother._

He nodded to himself. That sounded like a good reason to live. She was waiting for him, after all. He would find her, and then, somehow, everything would be all right.

There had been another reason, too, hadn't there?

Then he remembered. It had been the dream of redemption. Henry thought it was possible, after all that had happened, for him to redeem himself.

Cynthia's screamed echoed in his memory, along with the terrifying rush of hatred and brutality he had felt. Redemption?

Walter was no longer sure.


	12. Chapter 12: Arrival

Chapter 12: Arrival

Eileen slowed down when she saw the car stopped just outside of Silent Hill. They were here, all right, unless someone else had rented a car in Ashfield and driven here. She continued driving at a slower pace, on the lookout for anything strange. She already had an unusual feeling about the town, as though there were something wrong with it.

There was fog everywhere, for one thing. It seemed strange for that time of the evening. The entire town seemed abandoned, and there was a sort of cold emptiness to it that made her think about how alone she was.

_Nothing is going to go wrong._

She glanced over at her collection of weapons on the passenger seat, for reassurance that they were still there. It wasn't as though she had come unprepared.

She knew, though, that something probably already _had_ gone wrong. It didn't seem very likely that she would find Henry and his friend in no trouble at all, having encountered nothing more dangerous than a broken-down car and bad phone reception. Even excluding his odd behavior, she found it hard to believe that the town had been abandoned for an innocent reason.

The road up ahead seemed unnaturally dark, and she edged forward cautiously, wishing her headlights were brighter. She caught movement on the edge of her peripheral vision and looked sharply, but whatever it had been was already out of sight. She shivered. It had moved like some sort of spider, but the shape she had seen was far too large for that.

She abruptly realized that what she had taken for a dark road was actually a hole, and she hit the brakes before the car reached the edge of the cliff.

_What in the world happened here?_

After sitting there for a few moments until her heart rate slowed down, she slung her handbag over her shoulder and grabbed the nightstick. Then she reluctantly got out of the car.

Outside, the place seemed even more desolate. The wind blew, sending a slight chill through her, and she was glad for more than one reason that she had put on a black sweater before leaving. The weather here seemed to call for it, and there was something ominous about the town, as well. Eileen wasn't superstitious, but she knew that if she had come here with her upper back—and consequently, her scars—exposed, it would have felt like she was inviting trouble. As it was, she was aware of them in a way she hadn't been for years.

There didn't seem to be a bottom to the pit that had divided the road in front of her, and she couldn't see a way to get around it, either. She'd have to abandon the car, and she grimaced at the thought. She had no idea where Henry had gotten to, and searching the entire town on foot was going to be difficult.

She returned to her car and got out the map of the town that Rich had given her. If she started at one end of the area and worked her way across, that would be the best way to ensure finding Henry. She could only hope they hadn't found a way to cross the lake.

After studying the map for a while, she finally decided that the best thing to do would be to backtrack a short ways on Nathan Avenue, until she could turn down onto what looked like Lindsey Street. From there, she could make her way west through the rest of the town, until she found him.

_ Them,_ she reminded herself. _Someone's with him._

The back of her neck suddenly prickled. As illogical as it was, it felt as though someone—or something—was watching her. She got back into the car, even though it was only a short distance she was going to back up. The less time she spent out in the open, the better.

Once she was level with Lindsey Street, she stopped the car. She folded the map and put it in her handbag, and then she reluctantly got out.

"It's a nice day for a walk," she said out loud in an attempt to calm herself down. Considering it was not even close to being a nice day out, her lie didn't help at all. Even the starlight above seemed colder here.

Eileen began to walk down the street, but she hadn't gotten very far before she saw another abyss in front of her. With a sigh, she pulled out the map again to change her plan. There were buildings on either side of the road where she stood, and she thought she might check them, just in case, but they all were locked. The next step, then, would be to get back on the road that had brought her into Silent Hill, and take the next street that went into the town.

She walked back up the street quickly after putting the map away, disliking how loud her footsteps seemed in the otherwise quiet night. She still couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.

_Maybe Henry's not the only one who became a little paranoid._

She was glad when she finally reached the car again, and she was reaching for the door when she heard a noise above her. Jumping back as quickly as she could, she thought shakily that this was where a character in a horrible movie would look up slowly and get themselves killed.

There was a creature on top of the car.

Eileen's eyes widened in alarm. It was the spider-like thing she had seen from before, but more than just its size made it seem unnatural and wrong. It had a diseased, twisted look to it, and she realized that blood was running down it from an apparent wound on its body.

It slashed towards her with one spindly, vicious leg, and she smashed down on it with the nightstick. The monster screeched in pain and launched itself towards her, and she suppressed a shriek and hit it again. The nightstick worked efficiently, and soon it was dead on the ground.

Now that it was still, she realized that it wasn't a spider, as it only had five legs. Very strange legs they were, too, and she suddenly realized that it reminded her of some sort of distorted, disembodied hand. A blood-covered hand, at that, like the bloody hands of a killer…

Something rustled behind her, and she almost screamed out loud.

_I can't think about things like that right now…_

The noise still was important, though, and she gripped the nightstick tightly as she turned around, dreading what she would see.

More of the monsters were there, nails clicking against the ground as they moved towards her. She wondered if they had been watching when she walked down Lindsey Street, waiting for her to go back so that they could sneak up. She saw, or at least imagined she saw, more coming from between buildings. There were going to be too many to fight.

Eileen turned and ran down Nathan Avenue. The monsters were scurrying behind her, making an awful noise. From time to time, one of them would get too close, and she'd swing the nightstick to knock it back. She didn't dare slow down enough to deal with any of them more thoroughly.

_Oh God, is this what was happening when I lost the connection with Henry?_

She remembered that he had taken at least the spade with him, and that made her feel better, although more curious. She had been skeptical of the gardening trip story from the start, and could it be that he had known he was going into a place with monsters? Had he taken the spade to use it as a weapon?

Henry—and his friend, for that matter—were probably better prepared to deal with monsters than she was, but now she was certain they were in some sort of danger. Wherever they were, there were undoubtedly these monsters, if not worse ones, as well.

_ I need to find them, so we can get out of here!_

She started to turn down the next street, and one of the monsters appeared in her path as if on cue. With a single glance back at her pursuers, she stayed on Nathan Avenue. They would catch her in the time it took to dispatch that new one.

As she ran, she remembered what Henry had said to her on the phone, that his friend needed help finding someone. Another person was lost in Silent Hill? Having seen the monsters, she felt a surprising stab of empathy for Henry's mysterious friend. She could understand coming to this place to find someone close to you, and staying, despite all the danger, so that you could save them—it was what she was doing, too, after all.

She realized she was approaching the first chasm she had encountered, but to her relief, there was a small alleyway turning off of the road. She ran towards it, praying that there would be no new monsters to block her way.

There were none. However, she had the terrible feeling that she had reached a dead end. She could hear the monsters coming in after her, and she began to try all of the doors on the buildings around her. She willed herself not to panic.

She finally found a door that was unlocked, and she dove inside gratefully. She closed the door on the monsters, not caring that it left her in near-total darkness. At least she was safe, for the time being.

Eileen sat against the wall with her eyes closed, listening to the sound of her pounding heart. She hadn't felt this much in danger in…well, in three years. She had learned things back then, and one of them was that she couldn't just sit around and hope things would turn out all right without her doing anything. Henry hadn't wasted any time in rescuing her, and she would repay the favor.

It would, of course, help if she knew just where she was.

She set down the nightstick and opened her handbag. Pulling out both the map and her flashlight, she turned on the light and studied the map. From what she remembered of her run through the alley, she had to have gone into one of the apartment buildings. She hoped there was another door that could lead her back out into the town.

She folded up the map again, and stood up. If there was a way, she would find it, and if there wasn't, she'd go out and face the monsters again. She wasn't giving up.

xXx

Henry was sitting against the door to the outside, enjoying the slight breeze and trying to ignore the bloody message on the other wall, when he realized that he no longer _had_ to ignore the message. It was disappearing.

Better yet, as it disappeared, the third door reappeared. He stood up. Walter would be on his way back, possibly with his mother, although it wasn't likely, and they could go outside again.

The door opened, and Walter stumbled out. He looked far worse than he had the last time. He looked considerably dazed and seemed to be bleeding in many places. There was a gash above his eye, both of his pant legs were fairly soaked with blood, and a fair amount of the blood on his coat was probably his and not that of whatever he had been fighting.

"You'd better put down your weapons and get out a first-aid kit," Henry advised, keeping his distance since Walter was holding both a pipe and a knife and didn't seem entirely aware of where he was.

He waited for a while. There was no indication that Walter had even heard him. He groaned. He had a feeling this was going to be difficult. Approaching cautiously, he pried the weapons out of his hands and set them down in the corner. Then he frowned. That had been easy enough, but he wished he knew what he had faced in there that had left him shell-shocked like this.

"You really need first-aid," he commented, wondering if he should just grab the backpack.

"Are you going to kill me, Henry?"

It was such a bizarre leap of logic to make, from first-aid to murder, that he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Have you gone insane?"

He shouldn't have asked.

Walter grabbed him by the shoulders, and Henry realized that something was definitely wrong. It was more than just nearly dying at the hands of some monster. He had noticed from the beginning that Walter's cheerful façade had cracks in it, but now it was as though someone had set a hammer and chisel to those cracks. They had been getting along quite well earlier, but now, for that brief second or two, he was certain that Walter's hands were going to move up around his throat and strangle him.

Before he could think of what to do, he had been released, pushed backwards across the room. Henry regained his balance and saw that Walter was now facing the wall, holding his head and looking like he wanted to die.

"What did you fight in there?" he finally asked, wishing he could help him.

"It…reminded me of Cynthia."

"Oh." Henry paused. "When I asked if you were insane, I didn't mean anything by it, you know."

"It doesn't matter." But Walter managed to turn away from the wall and take off his backpack, mumbling something about first-aid kits.

Henry had the feeling this was going to be a messy process, especially since neither of them had exactly gained a medical degree since the last time. He walked over and opened the first-aid kit with a sigh. At least nothing was broken this time.

Partway through wrapping a bandage around his leg, Walter looked up. "Why are you helping me?"

"Well, we're in this together, after all."

_And we're friends,_ his mind interjected, but he was so surprised that he couldn't actually say it out loud.

"Wouldn't it be easier just to let me die?"

"Don't get all morbid now; you haven't lost _that_ much blood," he replied, smiling weakly. The monster had looked like Cynthia. Was it like having to kill one of his victims again? Was the town trying to give him a breakdown?

When they finally had Walter patched up as much as they could, they gathered everything back up, and Henry opened the door that would, hopefully, lead out of the subway. There were only a few steps to climb up, which didn't make sense considering how far down the passage had gone, but he supposed he should stop trying to apply regular logic to the Otherworld.

Up on the street, Henry looked around. They weren't anywhere near the Wish House, that was for sure. They were in another area of urban Silent Hill, rather than the forest. For that matter, he wasn't even sure they were anywhere closer to the lake.

He looked at the sign of the nearest building. It was some sort of Mexican restaurant. "Where's the map?"

Once the map was unfolded, he began to search for the name, hoping it was marked. It was, but his heart sunk when he found it. He looked up at the street signs to be sure he hadn't made a mistake.

Sanders Street.

Lindsey Street.

He looked down at the map again. It was no mistake. The subway had led them back in the wrong direction, and they were about as far from their destination as they could be.

"I don't think that was the passage you thought it was," he finally sighed.


	13. Chapter 13: Residential Labyrinth

Chapter 13: Residential Labyrinth

After finding out how far from their intended goal they were, Walter looked completely depressed.

Henry sighed and looked at the map again. "Don't worry about it too much. Bar any unforeseen obstacles—giant chasms, for instance—we can just head back this way and be near the apartments again. We'll take the path up past the hospital to get to the dock."

This time, there was no argument.

They had only gone a few steps up Lindsey Street, when Henry caught a glimpse of a familiar shape. He froze and turned to look. It couldn't possibly have been what he thought it was, because they only existed in his nightmares now…

Yet, when he had turned, the Twin Victim was still staring at him. With the appearance of two small children fused together and covered by a ragged smock, they were just as disturbing as they had been three years ago. He kept very still, remembering how much a blow from their disproportionately strong arms could hurt, and that sometimes they wouldn't attack if he made no sudden movements.

Unfortunately, Walter let out a yell when he saw it, and it charged.

"What are these things doing here?" Henry shouted, swinging the spade. His alarm gave him strength, and the Twin Victim went down easily. He was still shocked by their reappearance, however.

Instead of answering, however, Walter only whispered, "Oh no…"

"What?"

"No, not again, not _already_!"

Then Henry saw what he was talking about. All around them, the landscape twisted and transformed. The grass lost its color and became a rusty red, the road cracked and became a bloody metallic grating, and the walls of the buildings around them flaked and rusted. They were back in the Otherworld.

"Well," Henry sighed, tightening his grip on the spade, "let's keep going."

Unfortunately, the way was blocked. He had intended to go back down Katz Street, and return to the area with the apartments, but a gigantic, locked, black iron gate now stood in the way. Continuing along Lindsey Street worked only for a time before they encountered an impassable chasm, and they could make it just a few steps down Sanders Street before encountering the same. With nowhere else to go, they returned to Katz Street.

"See if you can find an alternate way through," he told Walter, while he went to examine the gate again.

It was an ugly thing, towering up above the buildings, with sharpened tips to the bars that warned against trying to climb over it. Just by tapping on it, he could tell that there was no way they could break through. It was locked by not one, but three padlocks.

He rejoined Walter, who had found that one of the houses was unlocked.

Inside, it was like a twisted parody of a home. It had a passable layout, but barred doors closed off some of the rooms, blood was everywhere, and all of the furniture was either misaligned or out of proportion. There was an unlocked door at the other end of the room, and that was what they went through.

It took them onto some sort of porch. A corpse lay sprawled across a cushioned swing, and a monster was crouched over it. Blood flew as it feasted. It turned around when the door closed behind them, and Henry took a step back in spite of himself when it approached. The creature was hunched over, its limbs contorted in an awkward fashion that gave it an unusual shuffling gait. It was hairless, but its skin was horribly veined and marred, not quite at the state of decay that some of the other monsters sported, but not far from it, either. Its face, however, was the most frightening thing, for although it was twisted at an impossible angle, it was otherwise perfectly human.

It leaped upon Henry, wrapping its crooked arms around him. Despite how they were bent, they were strong, and it squeezed tighter, trying to crush him. A bullet from Walter's handgun made it let go, and Henry finished it with a blow from the spade.

They both stared down at it.

"What the hell was that?" he finally demanded.

"Void," Walter whispered. At Henry's puzzled look, he added, "It had the face of Peter Walls."

Knowing that made the creature's appearance all the more disturbing, and Henry was relieved to open the door to the outside and leave it behind.

Unfortunately, when he stepped through, he wasn't outside. He was in another home. This one was free of any monsters, although there was a blood-covered note, nailed to the wall. He frowned at it.

_Ms. Blake,  
__I think you may want to reconsider joining us.  
__ J. Stone_

It meant very little to him, beyond him recognizing the name of the Order priest who had signed it, but Walter hissed softly when he saw it. He didn't comment, however, and kept going on to the next door.

When the door that should have led to the outside of that house led into someone's living room, Henry knew that the Otherworld was once again running on its own twisted logic. The room had one thing that drew his attention right away—a large safe in the corner, with a bloodstained message above it that read, "_Key…_"

The rest of the room wasn't very noteworthy. There was a partially ruined calendar on a table in the corner, a bar set up against one wall, and not much else. He remembered the gate with its three padlocks, and went over to the safe. There was a note taped to the front.

As he knelt to read it, he heard a crashing sound from one of the other rooms. Looking, he saw that another one of the hideous monsters was shambling through the doorway.

"I'll take care of it!" Walter shouted, running towards the Shambler and waving for him to continue.

He quickly read the note.

_I came home early one day and never went back alive  
__You'll need to go through the gate outside, if you want to survive  
__To open the lock, you'll need numbers three  
__Month and day of my death, and the number of me_

Henry frowned at it. How was he supposed to know when this man had died, let alone what his "number" was? He ran over and grabbed the calendar, hoping against hope that his death had somehow been marked.

He flipped through it quickly. "Birthdays, anniversaries, meetings…" He searched a second time and groaned. "How in the world should I know when he died?"

"His birthday!"

He looked over. Walter was fighting a second Shambler now, the first one lying dead on the ground. "What?"

"It's Eric Walsh; he died on his birthday!"

Henry found it on the calendar and returned to the safe. Entering the month and day as the first two numbers, he glanced at the note again. He still needed the third number. Third number…

_Wait, if Walter knows when he died…_

"What number was he?" he shouted, looking up.

A Twin Victim had joined the Shambler. "Ten!" Walter called back.

Turning the lock to that number, he turned the handle and was relieved to feel it open. It had worked. The safe was almost empty, but there was a key lying inside, as promised. It looked like it would fit one of the padlocks outside.

He put it in his pocket and jumped up.

"I hope you're done, because we really need to be getting out of here."

He looked. In the room past Walter, there was a hole in the wall, and Scuttlers were beginning to crawl out. He couldn't tell how many of them there were, and he didn't want to stick around to find out.

"Let's go."

When he opened the next door, he froze in shock. It was another home, but one made out of glass. There were only a few wooden beams, apparently providing the barest of frameworks for the house. He glanced down and swallowed nervously. It also apparently had a never-ending basement.

He had taken two steps onto the glass when he heard a discouraging _clink_. He looked around. The clearness of the glass made the blemish immediately noticeable. A crack had formed on one of the walls, and it was slowly spreading. Another crack was forming in the ceiling. He didn't wait to see if there were any more.

"Run!"

They sprinted across the glass, ducking as shards from the ceiling began to fall. They reached the door at the end of the room, and Henry opened it just in time for them to dive through before the entire glass home began to shatter.

With that place safely behind them, Henry looked around at the new home they had found themselves in. This one seemed to have a sports theme. There were framed pictures of sports teams, a case of trophies, and many more objects, none of which seemed nearly as important as the trio of Twin Victims that were watching from the other end of the room.

"Okay," he whispered, trying to remain calm. "There's probably a key in here somewhere. You handle the monsters, while I go and find it."

Walter raised the handgun, but he looked uncertain. "I don't like this."

"Yes, well, there are many other things I'd rather be doing, too."

"It's like I'm killing them again, over and over…"

"No it is _not_. They're monsters, that's all." Henry took a good look at his face and realized that he was nowhere near the present as he stared at the Twin Victims. The gun was already lowering. Doubtless he was remembering the actual twins when he saw them, and that complicated matters. "All right," he sighed, feeling a wave of sympathy towards him, "I'll take care of them."

"Do you want me to find the key?"

"Yes, search the house. If you find the key, take it. If there's a note, copy it down. If there's some sort of puzzle in the way, solve it."

Then he turned his attention to the Twin Victims. They were still, waiting for him to make the first move. He took a step, and they charged, all three coming at him at the same time.

He hit one with the edge of the spade, while the second one hissed and hit him. He fell to the side as the third one leaped. Twisting to avoid their attacks, he swung the spade at his first target again. It hit solidly, and he found himself staring at those disturbingly infantile faces as it fell to the ground.

A growl came from the side, and he ducked to avoid the arms of one of the others. He ran at that one with the spade as well, while the remaining monster swatted him from behind. Its blow was strong, and he yelled, falling into his intended opponent. It hit him on the side of the head and darted back.

Henry sat up cautiously, trying to ignore the pain in his head. The two Twin Victims were circling him. He pulled out the revolver and shot one of them until it finally cried out and fell down dead. The other one charged and knocked him down again.

It was a contest of wills for a moment, as they simply stared at each other. Then, he fired the revolver. The Twin Victim came forward anyway, trying to hit him again, but he killed it first.

After checking to make sure that all three of them were still, he got back to his feet and picked up the spade. He blinked a few times, because his vision was a little spotted, and then he winced. A Shambler had been in the house somewhere, and now it was walking towards him from one of the other rooms.

He reloaded the revolver and raised it. To his dismay, a pair of Scuttlers was creeping out from the room, hurrying forward to flank the larger monster.

"I've got the key!" Walter said, running in from another room. He held up the key and then stopped, seeing the monsters.

"Good, then let's go!" Henry shouted. He backed away a few steps from the monsters, and then turned and ran for the door out.

It opened into a room that was crawling with Scuttlers. They looked at each other, and then Walter opened the door they had just come through. Three monsters would be easier to fight than a horde.

The monsters were no longer there, however, and for good reason—it opened back onto the glass house. Henry suddenly realized that normal backtracking wouldn't work in a place like this. The state of the room, however, gave him more immediate worries. The glass was gone, and only a narrow beam of wood was left to connect the two standing doors. The bottomless pit below was even more noticeable than it had been before.

Carefully, they started to edge across. Taking it a step at a time, they made it to the other side. Just as Henry began to open the door, he noticed the opposite door opening. A Shambler had joined the Scuttlers, and it was opening the door to let them through onto the wooden beam.

Without waiting to see if the monsters would make it, he hurried through the door. Walter was right behind him. He looked around in surprise. He hadn't expected he could see something more startling than the glass house had been, but this house was utterly bizarre. It was painted in bright pastels; with clouds on the ceiling and plains on the walls, it looked as though it were scenery constructed for some sort of play. The only real thing in the room—and possibly in the entire house—was a gigantic stone, which looked very much like the one Henry remembered seeing the Forest World, next to which he had first met Jasper Gein.

"Do you think there's a key in here?" Walter asked.

"I don't know." He looked around. It didn't look as though there would be many places to hide a key, although he had hoped they would find the third key soon.

_Although that still would leave the problem of how to get back to the gate…_

The door behind them began to crack and splinter. A Scuttler's leg burst through, and the rest of the door shook as though about to give way. At the same time, the walls and ceiling began to crack, and blood spurted through them, pouring down the scenery.

Agreeing silently that there definitely was no key here, and therefore no reason to linger, Henry and Walter ran to the next door. It had been painted to look like a stone wall, and there were three sets of initials carved into it, as though to mark a hideout as the owners' secret place: _B.R._, _S.M._, and _J.G._

With the monsters breaking down the door, Henry didn't look at the initials very long. He pulled open the door, and they raced into the next area—which happened to be the area they had seen the first Shambler in.

They hurried through the house and onto the porch, ignoring the bodies as they ran through the next door. Instead of leading into the room with the letter from Jimmy Stone, they found themselves in a tiny, bloodstained room. Henry's stomach lurched; it looked exactly like one of the cells from the Water Prison.

The door slammed shut, and water began to swirl around their feet. Walter tried the door and found it locked; Henry noticed a keypad on the wall next to the door. He moved closer to it, trying to ignore the rising water. There had to be a code that would let them out of this room.

_ Oh God, we're going to drown here, aren't we?_

He forced himself not to think like that and tried to concentrate.

"Does it want a five digit number?" Walter asked, glancing around the cell.

"Yes. Wait," Henry said, holding up his hand. "Even I can figure this one out."

_18121._

The door swung open.

They got out as quickly as they could into a room that was both dry and free of enemies. Henry slammed the cell door shut on the water, and looked around. "You've got to be kidding me…"

The area they had found themselves in was not designed so much like a house as like an apartment room, and he didn't have to look too closely to know that he would recognize it. In the center of the room was a chair, with a plastic dummy sitting in it. He wasn't surprised to see that it was manacled to the chair. Two wires led from the manacles to control panels, one on each side of the room. There was a lever on each one.

There also was a door leading, he desperately hoped, to the outside.

For a while, they just stood there, looking at the disturbing setup.

"We could just go through the door," Walter finally said.

Henry shook his head. "What if this is where the third key is? We'd only have to come back, and that's assuming we could even find this room again."

Without waiting for agreement, he walked to one of the control panels and pulled the lever. There was a slight hum, and the mannequin's eyes lit up. After nothing else happened, he took his hand off of the lever, only for it to slide back up. He frowned and tried the other control panel. A couple of sparks flew, this time, but there was a similar lack of results.

He went back and forth a couple of times, and then he sighed. "I think we're going to both have to pull the levers, and hold them down at the same time."

"I have a sense of evil déjà vu. This seems particularly cruel."

"Just pull the lever on that control panel when I pull mine."

"Are you sure you need my help?"

Henry put his head in his hands for a while, and then he finally looked up. "Walter, it's a mannequin. A _mannequin_! There is absolutely nothing morally wrong with electrocuting a mannequin!"

Walter was quiet for a moment, and then he gave him half a smile. "You must be a blast in department stores."

He raised his eyebrows. "Will you just pull the lever?"

"Got it."

On a count of three, they pulled them down and held them. The mannequin's eyes lit up, sparks flew everywhere, and then it began to shake wildly. Whatever twisted thoughts had designed this had known exactly what this sort of death would look like. Henry flinched, too strongly reminded of the way Richard Braintree had died. It was only a mannequin, but at the same time, this was horrible to watch.

Walter had let go of his lever, but it didn't seem to have affected anything. He was gripping his head.

The chair began to move, turning in a slow circle as the floor below it began to descend, dropping into a slight depression.

"Stop laughing!" Walter shouted, apparently at the ceiling, as the mannequin convulsed wildly.

When it finally had stopped, Henry could see a key glinting between the two levels of the floor. He walked over to the chair carefully, in case something would start to happen again, and then he knelt to pick it up.

"That's the third key," he said, walking towards his companion. He was shaking, and didn't look well. Henry reached towards him. "Walter? Are you all right?"

"I…"

The door they had come through, which no longer seemed to lead to the cell, exploded open with Twin Victims.

Henry grabbed Walter's arm and pulled him through the next door.

They were back in the shattered glass house. He started to step across the beam, glancing behind to make sure Walter was following. After a few steps, he heard the horrifying sound of the door opening.

The Twin Victims had followed them through.

_If the Scuttlers from before are waiting up ahead, we're doomed._

He took a few deep breaths and continued to edge forward. This was no time to panic. They were ahead and could be more sure-footed than the clumsily moving monsters. Other than that, they were on equal ground here, because the Twin Victims would be in just as much danger of falling if they tried to move quickly.

The Twin Victims didn't care.

He was paralyzed for the terrifying second in which he saw the group of Twin Victims start to run across the beam, and then he knew they couldn't afford to be cautious anymore. If the monsters reached them in a place like this, they'd be dead.

"Run!"

Henry took off across the narrow strip of wood, feeling dizzying vertigo threaten to throw him off balance. He tried to breathe normally, concentrating only on putting on foot quickly in front of the other. He couldn't think about what he was attempting to do, couldn't think about the bottomless pit below, or the monsters chasing them; he just had to keep going…

Amazingly, the distance between him and the door began to close. He was almost there. A glorious sense of relief filled him. As insane as it had seemed, he was actually going to make it, and it was just a few more steps…

There was a yell behind him.

He turned and saw Walter, one foot having slipped off of the beam, arms windmilling as he tried to keep his balance. He fell.

Henry dashed forward and grabbed his arm, nearly falling off himself. He crouched, hanging onto Walter's arm with both hands. He tried to ignore how close the monsters were and how easily they could both go toppling over the edge. He wasn't sure how long he could hang onto him.

"Let me drop!"

"No!" Keeping a tight grip with one hand, he moved the other to try to grab the collar of Walter's coat and pull him up. His heart was pounding wildly. This was bad. "Can you reach the beam with your other hand?"

One of the Twin Victims had almost reached them.

"I think it would be easier if you just let—"

"_Grab the beam!_"

Walter strained with his other arm and managed to get it around the beam, but one of the Twin Victims had almost reached them. Henry let go of his collar and pulled out the revolver, shooting it as quickly as he could.

The monster screeched and fell, and he couldn't help but notice just how long of a drop it was.

He put the gun away and helped Walter scramble up onto the beam. They made it to the door with no further difficulty beyond the constant fear that the monsters would catch them when they were so close.

The door opened onto the edge of a wall, overlooking Katz Street and the black gate. Henry sighed in relief and dropped down onto the street. Walter dropped down beside him, looking preoccupied.

"You saved my life back there."

"Well, that's what I'm here for," he replied, not knowing what else to say.

"You could have died."

"That's been happening a lot, lately."

"I—I'm not…worth it."

Henry stared at him and realized he was going to have to come up with a really good argument. As he tried to think, the door on the wall opened, and the Twin Victims appeared.

He led the way to the gate, getting out the two keys he had picked up, while Walter got out the third. They did, fortunately, fit the three padlocks as expected, and the gate swung open with an ominous sound.

They started down the street, but their way was blocked yet again. Standing in the way was a cement wall, which changed into a statue partway up. From the middle of the wall, a figure had been built out, giving the impression that it was leaning towards them. Henry's stomach lurched. He had seen this before. It looked exactly like him, except with the face horribly scarred, and numbers carved into its neck.

_Just what I want to see before turning around to face the horde of monsters coming to attack me,_ he thought sarcastically, before doing just that. He got his revolver ready and waited for them to come within range.

"There's a plaque," Walter commented.

"Let me guess, it says, 'Better luck next time.'"

"No, it says, 'By the blood of your body shall you be left out to perish, until you return the blood from which it was taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.'"

_What the hell?_

"That's not how it goes," he said distractedly, shooting a Twin Victim.

"What?"

"I've heard the 'you are dust' verse before, and that's not right. That first part is supposed to be something about farming until you return to the ground. All that stuff about blood isn't supposed to be there." He shot another one and tried to see just how many were coming. It was a terrible time to be backed up against any sort of wall, even one that didn't seem grimly prophetic.

"Henry, I think it wants your blood."

He threw a disbelieving stare at him and saw that Walter was holding out the knife for him. He didn't take it. "I like my blood within my own body, thank you very much!"

"Think about it. This statue is you, except without any of your blood, and it says you'll perish unless you return the blood to it. It's worth a try, isn't it?"

Henry fired at the Twin Victims a few more times, thinking about what he had said. He had a point, and it wasn't as if there was a better option.

"Oh, fine." He stuck out his left arm and continued concentrating on the approaching enemies. "Not too much blood, mind you."

For a moment, nothing happened, and then he felt the blade of the knife slice into his finger. He winced and said nothing. Walter grabbed his hand and pressed it against the statue.

_This better work_, he thought anxiously, watching the Twin Victims get closer and closer.

The statue began to crumble. He turned around. Within seconds, the wall had been reduced to dust, and they could run on through. It left behind nothing but a mysterious pipe, which he grabbed in case it became useful later. He could hear the footsteps of the monsters running behind them, and he hurried along.

Up ahead, the two streets joined, but as they approached the corner, Henry slowed down, seeing one of the strangest things yet. It would have appeared entirely normal, had this not still been the Otherworld. A single home, looking perfectly normal, sat out against the other twisted aberrations. It caught his eye because of its bright colors and sense of sanctuary. He dimly thought that the roof looked newly painted, and wondered why he would even think of such a thing.

He put it out of his mind as something far more important caught his attention. There was another crowd of Twin Victims approaching from the road ahead, in addition to the implacable group behind. Henry and Walter started to turn down the intersecting road, but Twin Victims appeared from there, as well. They spun around to go the other way, and saw a fourth group running towards them.

Henry realized that they were trapped right next to the strangely normal house, and he suddenly was terrified of it. Perhaps it was not such a sanctuary at all. He couldn't shake the feeling that the Twin Victims were herding them towards it.

The monsters were slowing down, now, spreading out until they were in a partial circle. The only gap was for the houses on one side of the road, including the one that stood out so much. They had stopped and were simply staring.

As one, the Twin Victims all raised their hands and pointed. Their whispering voices filled the air and chilled Henry's blood. "_Unforgiven…_"

"What are they doing?" he asked nervously.

Walter's voice was almost as quiet as the monsters'. "I think they're passing judgment."

Henry took a deep breath. There were a lot of them, but the way they had spread themselves out, one part of the circle could probably be rushed. It would be dangerous for a short while, but they could probably get through. He put the revolver away and got out the spade. They would be fighting up close.

"Are you ready?" he asked, and then noticed to his dismay that Walter wasn't holding any weapons at all.

"I'm not going to kill them."

"This is no time to become a pacifist!" Henry cried, wondering why this had to happen now, when the blasted things had them surrounded.

Walter turned and looked towards the house. "Of course," he whispered. "That's where I have to go."

"If they want you to go in there, I think it's a really bad idea," Henry argued, but Walter was already opening the door. He realized that it was going to be another one of _those_ doors and darted to get inside as well.

He was left scrabbling against a bloodstained, Otherworld wall, all alone. Feeling decidedly unhappy with how things were going, he turned around to see what the Twin Victims were going to do to him, now that he was on his own and trapped.

But they had all disappeared.

* * *

_Note: The question came up in one of this past week's reviews about how Eileen can see the monsters, despite being innocent. I'll be honest, that was an annoying problem when I was trying to plan this story. I wasn't sure what to do with her, or Henry, for that matter. After all, Laura can't see the monsters in Silent Hill...on the other hand, Harry could see Alessa's monsters. I finally decided to go with it this way, where all three of them can see the monsters, but they perceive them in slightly different ways. Henry and Eileen's perceptions are more based around fear, whereas Walter's are around guilt, of course._

_Also, I've noticed some theory-developing in the reviews. Excellent! Whether your ideas are right or wrong, it makes my day to see people actually thinking about what might happen next. I hope you all keep enjoying the story as we continue..._


	14. Chapter 14: Destruction of Innocence

Chapter 14: Destruction of Innocence

There was no deception this time. Inside the building, it didn't look like a home at all. It was very dark, and gray, with an arching ceiling and a cold feeling to everything. In the center of the room, the creature, some sort of advanced Twin Victim by the looks of it, was standing. It was waiting for him.

Walter stepped forward to meet it.

The monster looked closer to the way the twins had in life than its smaller counterparts did. On this one, the bodies were longer and more distinct, and supported itself on curling feet as well as hands. While still joined together between a black, cloak-like cloth, he could imagine that it was the boy who had a complete body, with the torso of the girl fused to his, as though they were mimicking the twins' injuries. Their faces were detailed, now, looking human and more distinct, although still very close in appearance. They had hair, too, with the girl's trailing down in a brown braid.

He had the unnerving feeling, more than he had with the others, that it really was them—that his victims had returned to life to seek revenge.

_ That's nonsense_, he told himself firmly. _It's a monster, not Billy and Miriam Locane._

Still, he continued to stare at it, not even reaching for a weapon yet. He didn't have to look to know that the door had disappeared, and that killing this thing was probably the only way he could get out again. Perhaps dying was the preferable alternative. Nevertheless, he hadn't yet found the courage to die; in the glass room, he had struggled to save himself when Henry urged him to.

That, he didn't understand at all. He had believed in the alliance at a time when he had managed to distance himself from what he had done. Now, the past was being forced upon him, again and again, and he knew that everyone who had called him unforgivable had spoken truly.

He stared at the monster and wondered if Henry was helping him because he was afraid of him. It made more sense than anything else, by this point. He never actually had given a good explanation for his actions, nor had he expressed any sort of forgiveness.

_Although he did say he thought I could be redeemed._

Did that mean anything? Had it been at all sincere? He felt something inside of him shriveling up and dying, that tiny part of him that had hoped for friendship, that had been sure that if he only kept trying as hard as he could, at least one person would look past who he had been.

He looked at the monster's faces that looked like the faces of the Locane twins, and he thought about how young they had been.

_Was there ever any hope for me?_ he wondered.

The monster gave up on waiting for him to make the first move, and charged, arms swinging. It hit him harshly across the side of the head, and the blow knocked him several feet away. Shaking his head, he felt as though some sense had been knocked into him. He got to his feet and pulled out the handgun.

After all, it was just an enemy that was trying to kill him. He wasn't ready to die so soon.

That terrible laughter that had followed him through the town echoed around the room, as if to sneer at his new resolve. The monster cocked its heads as though it, too, could hear the sound.

Walter shot it.

It fell back with a roar, and then it looked right at him. Raising its accusing finger in the style of the Twin Victims, it began to whisper. Knowing that it could speak shook him up a little, even if it was only a single word. The word itself, once he made out what they were saying, made matters even worse.

"_Murderer… Murderer…_"

"No!" he shouted, glaring at them—at it, he corrected his thoughts quickly, because it was only a monster, after all. "You won't overcome me like this!"

He aimed the gun again and shot the monster several times in succession. He paused to reload it, and as he did so, he found himself thinking about the twins.

_He was almost done. Just a few more deaths, and he would have the ten hearts. Then, he could go forward with the next step of the 21 Sacraments. The Ritual of the Holy Assumption._

_ Thinking about that made him more anxious to complete this part, and he began to walk down the street more quickly. Then he saw them._

_ Two children, playing in the road. He wasn't sure how old they were, just that they were young. They also were alone._

_ He fingered the axe he had concealed within his coat._

The monster knocked him down again, having had time to charge him while he was distracted. As he tried to recover, it struck again, smashing him against the wall. Walter groaned, both in pain and exasperation. He really had to stop zoning out like that. It was dangerous.

He shot the creature at close range and got to his feet. The twins' faces stared at him, while he aimed and shot again. He shuddered and tried to get a grip on his thoughts. It didn't matter that it looked like that. The rest of it was what mattered—the fact that it was a monster, and that it was intent on killing him.

Thinking like that didn't mean he was callous or heartless. He took a deep breath and aimed the gun. It didn't mean that at all. It didn't.

_His conscience gave a sharp twinge as he approached them. They were only children after all, so how could he consider them sinners? How would their deaths be a blow against the evil of the world? How could this possibly help him be with Mother again?_

_ He knew the priests who had taught him would have laughed at him for thinking that way. There could be no compassion for these outsiders who did not understand the Scriptures. They were all sinners._

_ And yet, he knew he would tear the Order apart easily to help the ritual along. They were no better than the others. Two of the highest priests were already dead. They had nothing to say when it came to these children. He could walk away and leave these two alone._

_ Mother wouldn't want him to delay._

_ He almost frowned at the thought, wondering about its accuracy, but then he felt a wave of shame for doubting what he had been taught. He knew the ritual. He knew what he had to do._

_ These children meant nothing in the face of that._

The monster crashed into him as he hesitated, knocking the gun from his hand. He tried to reach for it, but the creature was in the way, striking him again. It was still whispering that he was a murderer. He hated it, hated himself, and he reached for his pipe so that he could keep fighting.

He could still hear that laughter, coming from everywhere at once. He wondered if that meant he was going to die here.

_He came upon the boy, first. The child barely had time to look up and notice him before the axe was swinging. The sharpened edge hit, slashing through that slender throat. Blood flew, and the body hit the ground._

_ He couldn't afford to waste any time._

_ Kneeling beside the body, he pulled out the knife he had kept with him at all times these past few days. He cut away the shirt first, and then drove the blade into the chest of the corpse, with enough force to crack the bone._

_ Blood spurted as he forced the chest cavity open and reached inside. He dug with his hands through the warm flesh, knowing by now where to look. Once the heart was revealed to the air, he picked up the knife again and began to cut around it._

_ A slight shiver ran down his spine as he finished his work. The first time he had done this, watching blood spray as he separated the heart from the flesh that bound it, he had nearly been sick. It was such a gruesome, grisly task. Now, he almost felt excited. He had gotten one more. He was one step closer to Mother._

_ He had brought a bag with him, and he pulled it out of his coat now and slipped the heart inside. Putting it back in his pocket, he got out a needle and thread and pinched the sliced skin together. He began to sew up the empty chest._

The monster had reached him again, while remembered bloodlust made his mind shudder and try to hide from itself. It hit his face, and his head snapped back against the wall. He tasted blood.

Walter swung his pipe at it, rather ineffectually since it had already moved away. He tried to catch his breath, feeling all of his previous injuries aching alongside the new ones. This was going very badly—terribly, in fact. His opponent didn't seem to be faltering at all, and he already felt like he might collapse.

He raised the pipe and hit the monster hard in the side of the head when it returned. It fell backwards with a screech, and the blood that flew reassured him that he had at least done some damage.

_ The little girl screamed just as he was tying off the piece of thread. So, she had finally noticed that her brother wasn't coming back. She must have seen him, a stranger, kneeling so close to her house, and then she came to stand behind him, looking to see what he was doing…and then, she must have seen…_

_ He turned around and smiled at her, her brother's blood dripping from his hands as he advanced towards her._

"No!" Walter shouted, trying to clear the images from his mind. That was the past; it didn't matter now. He wasn't a murderer anymore.

"I'm not," he whispered, feeling the world spinning around him. "I'm not a murderer anymore."

He repeated that softly to himself, trying to keep himself sane as the monster ran towards him. It lunged, and he met it with the pipe. It wasn't so difficult to actually fight, if he could only focus on it.

If only it didn't look so very much like those children. The monsters in the town were looking more and more human, reminding him painfully of the people he had killed. It was maddening. As if he didn't feel the weight of guilt enough already. He knew he was a murderer, so why did the town seem to feel the need to remind him?

His heart was pounding too quickly, and as he tried to swing at the monster again, he could feel the memories swirling up.

_ He grabbed her, holding a bloody hand over her mouth so that she couldn't scream just yet. Her eyes were wide with terror as he stared down at her. She looked so small. She wasn't very different from her brother, really, at this age, and it seemed odd to think that she would grow up into a woman._

_ She would grow up to become someone like those girls who had always picked on him when he was a little boy, frightening and mocking him as he tried to hide. Someone like Cynthia Velasquez, raising his hopes with false kindness only to destroy him._

_ Someone like his real mother who had abandoned him, all those years ago, denying him the love he so desperately wanted._

_ Mindless fury rose up in him, as he uncovered her mouth and got out the axe, fury born of hatred at the world that hated and tormented him, channeling itself into a surge of anger that could only be directed at this small, delicate thing that was screaming in his grasp._

_ He swung the axe into her shoulder with a vicious smile, throwing her down to the ground as he did so. She was trying to get away, but he was much stronger than her, the tiny thing that she was. Bones cracked and flesh tore, making wet, ripping sounds as he pulled her arm free of her body._

_ She screamed, agonized, wordless cries that called out to something deep inside of him and made a part of his mind flinch away. Anger at his own weakness fueled his hatred, and he began to chop at her other shoulder._

Walter grabbed his forehead and sunk to his knees, trying not to scream. No, no, why had he done it, why had he done such a terrible thing, and would it ever leave him alone? His thoughts were rambling, and he struggled to think clearly about what was happening.

The girl was…no, that was in the past. The girl wasn't here; all that was here was a monster, and_ that _was what he had to focus on.

It had reached him again, but instead of hitting him, its hands had latched around his arm. Shockwaves of pain ran from his broken wrist through the rest of it, and he lost his grip on the pipe with that hand.

Wielding it with one hand, he tried to swing it across his body at the monster. It connected, but not with enough strength to make it lose its grip. He raised his arm to try again, and then the monster began pulling his other arm backwards.

As his arm was forced to bend in a way it was never supposed to, the pain heightened until it was nearly overwhelming. He howled, trying to hit the monster through a haze of red.

Somewhere inside of him, a voice began to whisper that he was a fool to fight, and that he was a sick, twisted little creep, after all, and that this sort of pain didn't even begin to cover what he deserved to feel…

_Blood was everywhere, as he tore the girl's other arm free. The smell was strong, and with good reason, as he was covered with her blood. The grass beneath them was slick and wet, and he was still going, hacking now at her left leg._

_ She screamed and twisted, and it felt good to hear her scream. No one had ever heard him when he had screamed for help, no matter what was happening, and no matter how terrible the world was being. Now, she would feel the pain, and she would scream, and she would know there was no help coming._

_ Gobs of flesh flew as he chopped at her with a fiery enthusiasm. A piece of her hit him in the face, but he didn't pause to wipe it off, because he had to keep going, and besides, his hands were covered in blood, anyway._

_ He was onto her other leg, now, watching the sharpened edge of the axe strike flesh and bone, hearing her scream, feeling a giddy sense of near-madness from the spray of blood as it flew into the air._

_ She was quieting down now, and that was good, because he had to finish. She had been screaming for too long, and he knew someone would be coming to see. He had to be finished before they got there, or they would stop him, and he would never get her heart._

_ Out came the knife, to be driven deep into her chest. Again, the cracking of bone, the soft flesh inside. He found the heart and cut it free, working quickly because there was no time to savor the job this time._

_ The heart went into the bag, and he got out the thread. He held the thin flesh together with one hand, and sewed her back together, hearing screams as someone finally came to investigate and noticed the blood._

_ He jumped to his feet and took off down the street, not caring that people saw him. He had killed today, he had killed two more, and they were children, but he kept telling himself that it didn't matter, that it couldn't matter, because at least it meant he would be with Mother again…_

Walter's arm snapped and he let out a cry. Tears were in his eyes, although whether from the pain or the memory, or a combination of both, he was not quite sure. He was going to die, here, killed by this thing, and he knew it.

A part of him was happy at the thought.

He deserved to die.

As much as he tried to stop it, the whole scene was playing through his mind again, blinding him to the real world. The monster beat him into the ground, hitting him again and again, and he couldn't find the strength to do anything about it.

He was more of a monster than this distorted creature.

The memory was so clear, and so vivid, that he wanted to scream and run away from himself. The actions were terrible and sickening, but the emotions he had felt were possibly even worse.

And yet, a part of him wanted to fight back.

After all, this was his second chance, wasn't it? When he had died, he had accepted what he had done. This was his chance to prove that he could be different. It was his chance to prove that he didn't have to be a monster.

He stared at the thing that was killing him and wondered why he was forced into this choice—die a painful death or kill the Locane twins again.

_ Except that it's not the Locane twins_, a voice argued in his mind. _It's just a monster that looks like them. Even Henry tried to tell you that these things are only monsters._

He almost smiled. He could just imagine how Henry would be yelling at him if he were here. Poor Henry. He still thought he could be saved.

_And he'll be waiting for me outside. He might not leave Silent Hill until I come out._

The last thing he needed was another death on his conscience. Even if he died before the monsters got Henry, he would still be responsible.

He struggled to his feet, hitting the monster weakly with the pipe. It fell backwards enough for him to steady himself, and then he hit it again, harder.

It became a mechanical motion, swinging the pipe against the monster's body and then raising it to repeat the action. He didn't care that it was still hitting him, because it wasn't enough to stop him.

He felt tired…so very tired…

None of this was fair. He hit the monster even harder, suddenly angry at it. He hated this entire town for what it was doing to him. He thought he might be sick, if he didn't pass out first.

Walter smashed his pipe into the monster with increasing fury, until the skulls cracked, and blood and gore sprayed onto him. Even then he didn't stop, nearly sobbing, needing to hit it until he was sure it was dead.

Finally, he fell to his knees next to the corpse. Something had fallen from beneath its clothes as it fell. It was some sort of plate. He picked it up and squinted at it.

It was, in fact, a ceramic plaque, with the word "_Murderer_" carved into it.

He flinched. That certainly was appropriate. He slipped it into his coat pocket. Then he looked down at the corpse. It was dead. Despite everything, he had overcome it and the madness it tried to bring. Unable to contain his relief, he laughed.

Then he knew why that terrible laughter had sounded so familiar.

Horrified, Walter was barely aware of the door reappearing on the wall. That made laughter that had followed him…it was his own. He had sounded like that, to his victims—insane, cruel, mocking. He thought again of the little girl, and how she had screamed, and then all of his victims' final moments began to run through his mind.

He was in terrible pain, everywhere, as he finally grabbed the weapons he had dropped and staggered to the door. He felt as though he might die.

He rather wished he would.


	15. Chapter 15: One Final Attempt

_Note: Happy Walter Sullivan Day, everyone! (Today is November 21-that is, 11/21.) In honor of this special day, I decided to publish this next chapter early. I hope you enjoy it!_

* * *

Chapter 15: One Final Attempt

Henry was feeling very annoyed with the town in general. Whatever was happening to them, he needed someone to blame, and he chose Silent Hill. It hadn't been so bad at the start, but now it was really getting out of hand. Walter was going to be destroyed—psychologically, if not physically—by what was happening, and then everything would have been for nothing. It just didn't seem fair, and he, personally, was quite sick of it.

He also was extremely tired, and as he rested his head against the side of the house, he wondered if yelling out loud at the town would help. He wished he had a health drink with him.

_It's up to me,_ he thought blearily, closing his eyes. _He brought me because he knew he'd need help._

He wondered what Eileen was doing, back in Ashfield. He hoped she wasn't too worried about him. It would be difficult coming up with a story to tell her when he got back. That was tragic, really. Perhaps he would be able to tell her the truth someday.

The wall behind him shook slightly, and he opened his eyes to see that they were coming out of the Otherworld. As the street returned to normal, the house beside him also changed, until it looked no more out of place than anything else. The door had reappeared, as well.

He waited for a while, and then he decided to open the door himself, just in case something had gone wrong. He pulled it open, and Walter was standing there, looking like a scene from a nightmare. For a moment, Henry was afraid he was dead. Then he stumbled forward, at least somewhat alive, and Henry grabbed his arm to steady him. The other arm, he noticed, was hanging limply and at an awful angle.

There was blood everywhere.

Henry pulled the backpack free of him and searched through it for an ampoule. They had brought precious few of those, but—he glanced at Walter again to make sure he hadn't hit the ground—they were meant for times like this.

"This may hurt a bit," he warned, before injecting it into his arm.

It seemed to jolt a little bit of life back into him, as he blinked and looked around. He reached up and wiped a patch of blood off of his face, mumbling something about being alive and therefore able to die.

"You better sit down," Henry advised, getting out a couple of first-aid kits. "I can handle this. My medical experience seems to go up every time you come out of one of these battles."

Instead of listening, Walter took a few, careful steps over to him, and then he tried to clap his hand on his shoulder. He missed by a few inches and gave his hand a puzzled look as though not sure what had happened.

"We'd better get you out of here," he said worriedly. "You need a real hospital, not me or Silent Hill."

Walter shook his head. "No! I have to keep going… I need to find my mother…need to be safe with Mother…"

Hearing the desperation in his voice, Henry reluctantly sighed, "All right, we'll keep going for now. Just let me do what I can." He helped Walter sit down against the line of buildings and was surprised when he grabbed his arm.

"Get out of here, Henry," he whispered.

"What?"

"Leave this town. Go back to your home. Be happy, with Miss Galvin." He paused for a moment as though troubled by a painful thought, and then he continued, "Just forget any of this ever happened."

Surprised, Henry wondered if he had been hit badly on the head during that last fight. "What are you talking about?" he demanded. "When I was talking about leaving, just now, it was because of you, not me!"

Walter shook his head. "I can go on by myself. I'll find Mother."

Henry grabbed a roll of bandages and shook them at him in a nearly threatening way. "Now look, we're in this together. I promised I'd see you through this, and I intend to keep my promise."

"I release you from that promise."

"Breaking promises when things start to seem a little tough?" He shook his head. "That doesn't seem like a good way to live."

When he started work on a second dubious splint, he expected Walter to say something about it. He didn't, however, not even making a sound when Henry touched his broken arm, and he wondered how much pain he was in.

"Is it worth finding your mother if it kills you?" he asked quietly.

"If it works out that way, it might be for the best. I won't be around to torment you or anyone else any more."

Henry stopped and looked at him closely. There was a bleak, lost look in his eyes. "Come on," he whispered, trying to snap him out of it. "Who's tormented? Me? Nah…"

He didn't even smile. "You didn't see them. Names and a report mean very little next to the truth. If you had seen what I did to those children…you would have killed me. Leave me here, Henry."

Henry swallowed hard. Of course, it had been the Locane twins this time. He lifted the splint defiantly. "Now, stop it. That's in the past, and we aren't going to think about that any more. I'm going to fix you up, and then _we_ are going to keep looking for your mother."

He worked in silence, thinking he'd won the argument until Walter said, "No. Get out of here…while you still can."

"While I still can?" He raised his eyebrows. "What, have I been doing that badly against the monsters?"

"You're here with me. I'm a worse monster than any of them."

Henry felt cold inside. He finished patching up Walter to the best of his ability without saying another word. He didn't know what he could say. When he was sure his patient was going to be all right, physically, he drank an entire health drink in the hopes that it would get his mind working quicker.

_"I'm a worse monster than any of them."_

He drank a second health drink.

"Straight ahead for a while and then I can turn north towards the lake, right?"

"Yes, straight ahead for a while, and then _we_ can turn north towards the lake."

Walter began to slowly walk, and Henry followed alongside him. He shook his head when he saw the entrance to the subway they had taken earlier. It would have been so much better if they had avoided it entirely.

For a while, he carried both backpacks, until Walter stopped to catch his breath. Then, Henry put the contents of the second pack into the first, packing away their remaining medical supplies—and another round of sandwiches, he noticed with a bitter smile—in with the weapons. He slung it across his shoulders again and set the empty one down. It was near the exit to the apartment building, so they'd be able to get it on their way back.

_If we ever come back._

It was slow going, but he was relieved to see that Walter seemed to be regaining his strength. They encountered several Scuttlers along the road, but Henry took them out with the revolver before they could get close.

When they neared Brookhaven Hospital, Henry started to turn north, but Walter stopped, staring at the building.

"She could be waiting for me in the hospital," he whispered. "That could be considered a beginning."

"Isn't Brookhaven a mental facility?"

He looked pained. "Henry, you can keep going. I know you hate making these detours. I'm going in there, though."

Feeling ridiculously awkward, Henry patted him on the back. "If you think we should stop there, then we'll stop there. I'm with you all the way, buddy."

Ignoring the perplexed look that that statement earned him, he opened the doors to the hospital.

xXx

Eileen left the apartment building with a sigh of relief. There hadn't been too much to bother her there, other than a handful of those horrible monsters. On the other hand, without a map or a light, it had been rather difficult to find her way to the other doors.

A monster was waiting as she stepped out, and she hit it until it was dead. Shaking her head, she closed the door behind her. Something fell to the ground by her foot, and she frowned.

It was a ceramic plaque that apparently had been hanging from the door. She picked it up and turned it over. The word _"Victim"_ was carved into it.

She shivered. That certainly didn't make her feel any better about being here alone. Perhaps it had been a mistake to come.

_No. Henry is here, somewhere._

She started to walk away from the building, not sure which way she should go to begin her search, when something caught her eye. It was only a backpack, but it looked familiar. When she went over to see, she saw that it was, in fact, exactly like one she knew Henry had owned. She didn't think it was the one he had been carrying the spade in, but perhaps he had given it to his friend.

_Then they've been here._

She hoped they had a good reason for abandoning an empty backpack in the middle of the road. One alternative possibility was that it had been taken from them—or that they were dead—but she pushed such dark thoughts out of her mind.

If they had been here recently, then she just had to figure out which way they had gone.

A scuttling footstep got her attention, and she raised the nightstick worriedly. Those monsters—Bloody Hands, she kept thinking of them privately, although the name seemed more ominous than it was worth—would be returning.

Two of them came out from behind a building, and she attacked. She could hear more of them coming, and that was troubling. She only hoped there wouldn't be too many, as she fought against the first two and waited for the rest.

xXx

"All right," Henry sighed, "where do you want to look?"

"This way," Walter said, turning left and starting to walk.

He sighed again and followed. The hospital was dark, so he'd had to turn the flashlight back on, and their footsteps echoed throughout the hall. The most disturbing part was that he wasn't entirely sure if they were in the regular—relatively speaking, of course—Silent Hill or the Otherworld.

It looked normal enough, but there were splatters of blood here and there on the walls. Occasionally he would look up and see a rusty fan churning behind some sort of vent. He thought he could hear voices whispering, too, as if the souls of the patients had gotten trapped and were trying to cry for help.

That was an incredibly morbid thought, and he knew it. He couldn't quite help himself, though. Something in the atmosphere set him on edge. He couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was going to happen here.

_We're walking through a mental hospital in Silent Hill, looking for Walter's mother. _That about summed it up, and he hoped the obvious reasons for his anxiety were the only ones.

He looked up as they passed another one of those fans. Who in the world had looked at those and decided they were a good idea to install? He knew they hadn't always been rusty, but that just brought up the question of how long the town had been abandoned.

Something moved to his right, and he looked over into a human face.

He yelled and jumped back in surprise. He realized almost immediately that it wasn't human at all, but just something closer to looking human than anything they had encountered previously. It looked almost like a conventional zombie from a horror film, a twitching corpse, and after shooting it until it fell, he turned and saw three more coming down the hallway behind them.

"What the hell are these things?" he asked, noticing that they seemed to have distinct faces. He tried not to look too close.

"Four more victims," Walter replied softly. He had his handgun out, but Henry wasn't sure if he was actually going to use it or not. He wasn't even sure how he was still able to use it, by this point.

As the Victims closed in on them, he reached back for the spade. Instead, his fingers closed around the pipe that he had taken earlier, after the statue had crumbled. Pulling it out, he swung it into the nearest monster. The human-like creature fell after only a single hit, and he felt impressed. For a weapon he had chosen by accident, it might be better than the others.

They took care of the other two easily, with Walter finally returning to himself and shooting the one. He seemed to be drifting from reality more and more often, which was quite worrying.

He almost wanted to ask what had been in that house, for it to have such a negative effect, but then he remembered the Twin Victims surrounding them, and Walter's reference to the seventh and eighth victims, and decided it was best not to ask for details.

Henry felt very alone, as they walked through the quiet halls of the hospital. After a while, Scuttlers began crawling out from the shadows as well, but all of the monsters excited more annoyance in him than fear. The Victims, in particular, he wanted to grab and shove back into the past where they belonged. He didn't recognize their faces, but he knew Walter did. He didn't like the detached sense of isolation that was beginning to fall over him. It increased his fear that he was the only one who would leave Silent Hill alive.

He glanced at Walter as they continued along, wondering how all of this had happened. At the start, Walter had been practically optimistic, unfazed by the nightmarish things around them, and convinced that they could be allies, if not friends. Henry, in contrast, had hated everything about what they were doing, and the worst part was being stuck with an enemy. Now, Walter seemed to have been crushed down by an invisible weight, nearly to the point of giving up, while he, bizarrely, was as worried for him as if they really were old friends.

_Almost brothers,_ he thought wryly, remembering when he had tried to explain that to Eileen on the phone.

They had to be almost done with this. They'd find Walter's mother, and then they could all go home and live in some vague sense of normalcy. He clung to that thought, adopting it as a sort of mantra to pass the time.

Part of the problem was that the hospital was monotonous. All of the doors seemed to be locked, and instead of frustrating him further, it only made him sigh and wish they were somewhere else. It seemed entirely futile, and with every Victim monster seeming to drain Walter's energy a little more, Henry was about ready to suggest they turn back, when they finally found an unlocked room.

It appeared to be a small office, with nothing in it besides a couple of bookcases and a desk. There also was a key, but when he picked it up, he saw that it was labeled as being for the exact room they were already in.

Henry sighed. "All right, what now? All of the doors are locked. We have a key, but it's for _this_ room, which is not going to help with anything else. I think we should give this up as a lost cause, and keep on going towards the lake, unless you have any idea of where we should search."

"The basement," Walter whispered.

"The basement?"

"When we walked past, I heard her voice calling to me, like I have the other times. I knew I should go in, but…" He put his head in his hands. "I'm afraid it will be like those times. I don't know who it will be this time. I'm afraid… Yet, I know I have to go in there, to know for sure."

Henry wasn't entirely sure what he was talking about, but there was one thing he was certain about, and he said it out loud. "You're not going in another one of those rooms."

"What?"

"Every time you think you hear your mother, you go into a room alone, nearly get killed, and come out in terrible shape. You shouldn't have to face that again."

He didn't add that he thought that if Walter had another one of those battles this soon, he would never make it out alive.

Walter glared at him, showing more energy than he had in a while. "Would you abandon _your_ mother in a place like this?"

"I'm not asking you to _abandon_ anyone." He sighed again. "Look, you just wait here. I'll go search the basement." He rather wished they had kept the walkie-talkies.

"No, I should go."

"If your mother is down there, I swear upon my life and all I hold dear that I will bring her back safely."

That caused Walter to blink in apparent surprise, but he shook his head. "It's my duty to go down there. And if it's a monster, then it's my fight, not yours."

Henry was suddenly very aware of the key still in his hand, and he began to move casually towards the door. "I don't know what happens to you when you go into those places, but I don't want it to happen again."

"The monsters have reminded me of my guilt."

"I think you understand your guilt well enough already." Then he bolted for the door.

It was an unexpected move, and as such, he had slammed the door to the office closed by the time Walter tried to follow him. He put the key in the lock and turned it triumphantly. Putting it in his pocket, he glanced down the hallway in the direction he thought the stairs to the basement had been.

"I'll be back soon," he called in response to the pounding on the other side of the door. "You just wait there for me."

The way back to the basement was devoid of any monsters, and he felt rather pleased with himself as he hurried down the steps. Of course, he was probably heading into terrible danger, but he was sure he could deal with it. Besides, he was doing this for a very good reason.

"It is a far, far better thing," he began quietly to himself, and then he gave up. He wasn't sure he could remember the rest of the line quite right, but all that mattered was that he knew what he was doing.

When he reached the basement door, he put his new pipe back in his backpack. The revolver, he suspected, was what he would want to use for this. However, the door was locked.

He shone the flashlight on the door, hoping there was an obvious way to unlock it, and then he noticed a screen with a button beside it, as well as a full-blown keyboard built into the wall, rather than a simple keypad. He hit the button.

The screen lit up at once, and text began scrolling across the screen. _"Welcome,"_ it displayed in large, bold letters, and then it explained in a slightly smaller font that he would have to answer a few questions to prove that he was worthy of going past the door.

It was so surreal that he almost started laughing.

_ "Question One,"_ the screen typed, _"Sharon Blake was in the forest near Silent Hill, trying to find out if her family, members of the Order, were alive or dead. However, just as she found proof that they were dead, she herself was caught, and drowned in Toluca Lake. Who killed Sharon Blake?"_

Henry stared at the screen in dismay. Sharon Blake? He had never even heard the name before, let alone the details of her death. He didn't think it was a very famous story. How should he know who had killed her?

Then he winced. On the other hand, given the pattern that things seemed to be taking around here…

Since the machine was patiently waiting for his answer, he decided it was worth a try. He typed carefully, _"Walter Sullivan,"_ and hit the key to enter it.

_ "Correct! Question Two. Three young men were known to be avid fans of the occult, showing particular interest in the Order and its rituals. Two of them were strangled, but the third was not killed until several years later. Unlike the others, he was burned alive. What was his name?"_

Henry nodded. He had witnessed the death, after all. _"Jasper Gein."_

_"Correct! Question Three. All of the victims of this notorious murder case were found with numbers carved into them. A lesser-known fact is that they all had titles, or a theme to their murder. What would have been carved into the victim known as the Receiver of Wisdom?"_

He couldn't help but grin. That one, he definitely knew, and he wondered if the town had made that the third question just for him. It was an insane thought, but he wasn't so sure it was impossible.

_ "21121."_

_ "Incorrect."_

He stared at the screen. What did it mean, saying the answer was incorrect? He knew perfectly well that he was the 21st victim of the 21 Sacraments. He frowned at it, thinking, and then he groaned and tried again.

_ "21/21."_

_"Correct!"_ The screen went dark, and the door opened.

He'd done it. The way into the basement was clear. Beaming, he made sure he had a good grip on the revolver, and stepped through to see what would await him in the darkness.

xXx

Eileen was starting to panic. She had tried to get further down the road when the Bloody Hand monsters had started coming in greater numbers, but then they had begun coming from that side as well. She had tried to fight her way back to the apartment, but there were too many of them in her path. They had her surrounded.

The bleeding, insect-like bodies lay all across the road, and yet they were still coming. She hit the one closest to her, and when it screeched and died, she earned a small respite from fighting. She put her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath.

She was exhausted. She had already drunk one of her health drinks, but it hadn't been enough. She knew she could have another one, but she was afraid she would need it later on. She couldn't afford to waste anything.

She could hardly see anything of the road in front of her now. Henry could have been out there, and she wouldn't have known. There were just too many monsters, all around.

Another one was about to reach her, and she swung both her handbag and the nightstick furiously, beating it back. It took longer than the previous one had, and she knew the problem lay with her. The monsters weren't getting stronger—she was weakening.

Eileen closed her eyes, trying to win back some energy and stave off panic. Three of the monsters leaped at her with enraged hisses, and her eyes flew open as she tried to beat them off. This was impossible. She didn't like to admit defeat, but deep inside, she knew there were too many of them. They would eventually overcome her. She would never find Henry, never be able to help him, and he might never even know what had happened. If he made it out of Silent Hill, he would return to the apartment to find her missing forever.

She screamed as the monsters attacked again, both out of fear and out of the desperate instinct to try to alert help. She doubted anyone was around to hear, though, and the monsters just kept coming.

_ Please,_ she begged silently, bracing herself to face the oncoming horde, _someone help me._

xXx

Walter had given up pounding on the door and had settled for glaring at it instead. He didn't like being locked in, especially when he knew he should be somewhere else.

On the other hand, he felt oddly touched that Henry was trying to protect him from whatever was in the basement. It made him wonder if he might have been wrong, earlier—if, perhaps, there was a chance of forgiveness after all.

He had been seriously considering finding a nice, easy way to die, but he wasn't so sure, anymore. What if it was possible to truly repent and be forgiven?

_The only condition for forgiveness is repentance._

He nodded slowly. Yes, that was right. That's what he had returned to the world of the living believing. How had he forgotten so quickly?

Well, when he really thought about it, he knew how he had forgotten. It was the memories in all their clarity, and the impact of just how much he had to repent for. For a while, it had seemed like it was too much.

As he stood there in the office, thinking about ways he could truly make the most of this second chance, he heard a scream. At first, he thought it was only another trick of Silent Hill, or possibly a trick of his mind. After all, Henry had often heard screams, while his own laughter had been haunting him through the town. It was possible that now he would be hearing phantom screams as well.

Then he realized that it was different. It didn't have that unnatural quality that so many other things here had. It sounded too _real_, as though someone really were outside, screaming for help.

_One final attempt at redemption,_ he thought grimly, staring at the door. It took one good charge, slamming his entire body into it, to knock it down.

As it hit the ground, part of it cracked off, as though weaker than the rest, and he frowned at it. It looked like a ceramic plaque had been concealed inside a hollow part of the door. He pulled it free.

_"Atoner,"_ it read. He smiled and slipped it into his coat with the other one. Yes, that was it. That was what he wanted to be.

Then he raced down the hallway for the exit, in the direction of the screams.


	16. Chapter 16: Protector

Chapter 16: Protector

Henry's bravado subsided somewhat as he entered the dark basement, and he found himself ruefully wondering if he was close to losing his mind. The flashlight's beam illuminated the room, and he didn't like what he saw.

The walls were streaked with red in the fashion he had come to associate with the Otherworld. Pipes running along the ceiling added disconcerting shadows to the already eerie appearance. The floor was bare, except for small piles that he initially took to be debris. A closer glance revealed them to be something far more gruesome—small, twisted bodies, half-formed and then discarded.

Motion caught his attention, and he shone the light in that direction. It was a portion of the wall, pulsating slightly, moving as though alive. Looking around, he now saw areas like this everywhere, scattered across the walls and ceiling.

_This is the framework for a lunatic's nightmare._

The thought caught him, and though he tried to shake it off, it refused to be dismissed. The things around the room were alien and bizarre. They were meant to hold meaning, but they had none for him. He was a trespasser, disrupting the intended flow of events.

Shivering slightly, he noticed that there was a body lying in the center of the room. At least, he thought it was a body. From his dim light, he could see bloodstained cloth and sprawled limbs.

He touched the handle of his revolver, just to make sure it was well within his reach, and then he started forward. More details became clear as he continued to walk forward. The figure was collapsed in a position that seemed eerily familiar, and his mind snapped back to the image of Eileen in her apartment, three years ago, after having been attacked. This person even had hair like hers.

He knew it couldn't possibly be her, but he quickened his pace anyway. He would never forget the fear he had felt upon finding her. He had been terrified that he was too late, that she would die like the others. His inability to save them haunted him as much as how close he had come to failing her as well.

When he was just a few steps away from the figure, it moved, and he knew he had made a terrible mistake in coming this close. Pale arms bent and pushed the rest of the body up, and it rose from the floor to stare down at him. It was definitely not someone who needed his help. What it was, on the other hand, he was not quite sure.

It towered above him, having the appearance of a gigantic woman in loose robes of white. Streaks of blood covered both its flesh and the robes. Bloodshot eyes looked down at him, and he took a step back as he continued to stare. It—she?—looked to be very pregnant, with her stomach swelling out beneath a patch of blood-soaked cloth.

Then he realized that it wasn't all cloth that he was seeing, there. That was the pale skin of her stomach, horrifically slashed and bleeding. The skin flapped as if in imitation of the robe he had mistaken it for, and he thought he could see something turning, or possibly writhing, beyond.

His stomach lurched, and he nearly was sick as he averted his eyes. He did not want to look _inside_ of this—what was it? Was it a woman or a monster?

He turned his gaze back to her face, hoping to see there either humanity or its lack, but she had turned away from him, stooping to pick something up. He frowned for a moment at the object she held, before realizing it was some sort of weapon. Composed of the fallen bodies he had noticed earlier, it had the shape of a hammer. The woman-monster swung it against the ground, and the room trembled.

He knew that if she hit him with that, he would be horribly injured. The most likely result he could imagine was his bones shattering into a thousand pieces.

_Fortunately, it won't come to that._

He pulled out the revolver, reminded himself firmly that this thing was only another monster—and resolved to stop humanizing it in his thoughts—and aimed for the heart.

The bullet hit, but it hardly seemed to faze the creature. She—no, it—began to walk towards him, swinging the hammer as she came. With each arc, it crashed into the side walls, and they cried out.

At first, he thought he had imagined it. Focusing on taking a second shot with the revolver, he put the sound down to his overactive imagination. When it happened again, however, he couldn't ignore it any more.

The walls, the parts that he had noticed seemed almost alive, let out cries of pain each time the hammer hit them. It was a horrific and oddly pathetic event to witness, and he found himself thinking about the builder who had constructed these walls. They would have been built to stand firm, to offer sanctuary and support. They were never meant to be a symbol of pain and suffering.

Have_ I lost my mind?_ he wondered, rubbing a hand across his face.

The basement was not very wide, and he saw that the monster could use that to its advantage. With its larger stature, it could block his way. Walking towards him as it was doing, it intended to back him against the wall and then strike.

He would have to get past it before it could do that.

Henry waited until the creature had almost reached him. The walls around him were shaking as it got closer and closer. Once it was close enough, he prepared to run. The grisly hammer was swinging, close to him, far too close for comfort…

At the apex of its swing, he charged, racing under the monster's upraised arms. There was just enough room that he could hug the wall and get past without having to touch it, but he could feel heat radiating from it as though it were fevered. He could see that the cuts in the flesh were tattered and jagged.

As he ran past, the gaping wound seemed to flap wider for a moment. He felt a horrific suction pulling at him, and he increased his speed. It felt terribly like the creature's womb was trying to pull him in through the gash.

_What the hell is going on here?_

Once beyond immediate danger, he turned around and fired the revolver quickly at the monster's exposed back. It moved quicker than he had expected, and the hammer hit the ground at his feet. The shockwaves knocked him off balance, and he fell backwards, hitting the ground hard.

He forced himself to stand up again and ran backwards, getting out of its range. He couldn't tell if shooting it was having any sort of effect, and he was afraid it wasn't. It couldn't be invulnerable, though.

He remembered fighting the monster, or group of monsters, known as the One Truth. That was another fight that had seemed impossible, until he had realized that there was a trick to defeating them. Perhaps this battle, too, required some sort of trick.

Before he could think of anything, he became aware of a new sound. Joining the chorus of walls screaming from the monster's rampage, a low melody was filling the air. It had a pleasant enough sound on its own, but it was made up of words that were twisted and grating. They weren't in any language he recognized, and he had no idea what their meaning was, but they made his skin crawl. He thought the monster itself might be singing it, although its mouth wasn't moving.

Forcing himself to ignore the eerie chords, he shot the monster again. For a while, the battle fell into a safe, if futile, routine. Henry would shoot at it until it had almost reached him, at which point he would run to the other end the room, reload the revolver, and then turn to shoot again. The monster made no attempt to dodge his shots, but they didn't appear to be causing it any pain, either.

All the while, he was watching it and observing the basement around him for some clue. If there was a trick, he knew he had to find it soon. He was tiring out from running back and forth, and one of these times he was going to make a mistake. Either the hammer would smash him into death, or, worse, he would falter and succumb to the tug of the wound as he ran by.

Yet there was nothing that he could see that would give him an advantage. He took a deep breath to steady himself. There was a very good chance that he might die here.

He and the monster faced each other once again. He prepared for the routine to begin, but to his surprise, something was happening to the basement. The air in front of him was becoming colder, and he thought he could see frost creeping along the walls beside him.

A thin sheet of ice formed suddenly, separating him and the monster as though it were a window. There was a single word, in a dark hue of blue: _"Go."_

"Go?" he repeated out loud, frowning at it.

The ice blurred, and new words formed: _"This is not your fight."_

He nodded then, in grim understanding. The town, or the monster, or perhaps even his own mind, was giving him the option of turning back. There was no reason for him to be here, because the battle was intended for someone else.

He wondered, briefly, if that was why he could not win.

This was not the sort of position he had expected to find himself in when he went to the café that morning. He never would have imagined it would come to this. The message was very true, he knew. It wasn't his fight. Walter was supposed to be here, fighting this creature, and if he left now, that might still come to pass.

Unfortunately for whichever force it was telling him these things, Henry's mind didn't work that way. He allowed himself a faint smile as he stared at the message on the ice. How many of his actions three years ago could have been summed up as, _"This is not your fight"_? He would have done anything to protect Cynthia, even though they had just met. He'd had no true reason to want to help Andrew, but he had tried his hardest to save his life. All of them, he had done his best for, just moments after meeting them.

He had known, when they met Joseph Schreiber's ghost, that he would protect Eileen from him if he turned out to be a threat. He also had known that if there had been some way of helping Joseph's shade find freedom, he would have done that, as well.

Ironically, the one person he hadn't tried to help was the one asking for his help now. Walter had been beyond help three years ago—although sometimes in his nightmares, he wondered if anything would have changed if he had known who he was, and tried to reason with him, there on the stairs in the Apartment World. Now, he could help him, and—despite all of his earlier hatred for the task—now, he wanted to.

Henry shook his head at the message on the ice. He wasn't going to turn around and leave, because this _was_ his fight. He would see that the monster was stopped here, or he would die trying.

He hit the glassy divider with the revolver, and it shattered. Something else fell to the ground as well, and he shone his light on it out of curiosity. It was a plaque, apparently made of ceramic like the one he had found earlier. It had been carved with the word, _"Protector."_

With a slight grin, he bent to pick it up despite the approaching monster. Protector, eh? That was a nice thought. He put it in the backpack with the other one, took the opportunity to get out a health drink for energy, and prepared to continue the battle.

However, he still had no better strategy for fighting. Running past the monster was easier after that brief rest, but it was becoming more agitated as time went on. The hammer was swinging wildly, and more then once he had to jump out of the way of an unexpected blow. He considered it only a matter of luck that he hadn't suffered injuries beyond a few bruises from being knocked off balance.

After several more passes, he felt very grim. His bold resolution seemed most likely to come true in the "die trying" sense. Eventually, he was going to tire out.

Then, the mistake he had feared happened.

Running past the monster as he had done so many times, he was only focused on getting past and wasn't watching the ground beneath his feet. Part of the wall must have been knocked loose from the hammer blows, or perhaps one of the tiny bodies had shifted. Whatever it was, it caught his foot, and he tripped.

He caught himself before he could fall, but it slowed him down. The hideous suction had him ensnared.

Flaps of bloody skin touched him, pulled him in as he shuddered and tried to get away. The monster's flesh was all around him, and his mind warred a battle against both panic and nausea. He happened to think of a mythical hero—he couldn't remember which one now, and he was sure it didn't matter under the circumstances—who had cut himself out from a monster that had consumed him, killing it even as he had saved himself.

Henry didn't think there was a chance to save his own life, but perhaps he could at least kill the creature as he died. With that in mind, he forced himself to turn his head and look at the chamber he was being forced into, even as he struggled to remain outside.

What he saw was so mind-boggling that, for a moment, he forgot to be afraid in his attempt to comprehend it. The monster was not, as he had originally thought, pregnant. At least, it wasn't pregnant in the traditional sense. In the stomach—or the womb, perhaps, or wherever in the monster's anatomy he was—was a machine. It wasn't just any machine, but a copy of the whirling, gyroscopic death machine that Eileen had been forced to walk towards during their last stand against Walter.

His fear returned in a rush, shooting up to levels he hadn't thought possible. He wasn't just going to die; he was going to die by being sliced apart by that thing. Despite all of his attempts to escape, he was still being pulled forward. He could hear it spinning, and a morbid part of his mind could already imagine it cutting his skin.

_At least I'm going headfirst, so it'll be quick,_ he thought dismally.

The rest of his mind rebelled against that sort of thinking. He wasn't dead yet, and that meant that there was still a chance. He had never given up before, and he wasn't going to start now.

He stared at the spinning mechanism, thinking desperately. He watched the way the wheels spun around each other, trying not to picture his own flesh in there. He knew he was running out of time, but he forced himself to think clearly, reasoning his way through the problem. If there was a solution, he had to find it.

It came to him, a slightly desperate idea, but the only one he had.

Struggling to reach back, he pulled the almost-forgotten pipe from his backpack. He had won it from one symbol of death, and now it would destroy another.

He reached forward and jammed it into the machine.

The wheels turned, hit the pipe, and tried to keep going, as he sent up a silent prayer. The pipe shuddered—and held. With an awful sound, the machine stopped, and the force pulling him in slackened.

Henry pulled himself out and reached for his gun, only to see that the monster was staggering backwards. The discordant music no longer surrounded him. Pale hands unclasped, and the hammer fell to the ground, sending bodies everywhere. With a terrible, mournful cry, the monster swayed and fell, dead.

He stared at the body, thinking about how when he had first seen it, it had reminded him of Eileen. Such a terrible set of circumstances had combined to form this thing. He thought about what effect it might have had on Walter, if he had come to fight it instead.

Henry sighed and began to walk back towards the door. When he got back to Ashfield, he would need to do a lot of explaining. It would take a lot of time, but he thought he probably could prepare Eileen. Then, maybe she and Walter could meet after all, and start over.

For the first time, it wasn't an unpleasant thought.

_

* * *

Note: Well, it's a short chapter this time, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. I'd like to take a moment to thank my one friend, who helped me with the details for this week's unsettling monster. I was stumped about what to do with an Eileen-monster. xD Also, I hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving!_


	17. Chapter 17: Uneasy Alliance

Chapter 17: Uneasy Alliance

Eileen stopped screaming after a while, because she didn't think anyone was around to hear, and more importantly, because she knew she needed to conserve all the energy she could.

She had gotten her chain out, trying to use its longer reach to keep some space around her. It had proved only partially successful, as there were too many of them coming at once to stave them all off.

One charged her, and she struck it down, ducking as another's legs swung past where her head had been. She took a step backwards to get away from it and her foot caught on one of the fallen monsters. For a brief second, she pictured herself hitting the ground and struggling to rise as the monsters rushed over her. Then she had regained her balance, and she fought harder from that burst of terror.

Bloody Hands. She was trying hard to banish that imagery from her head, but it was proving difficult. Every time she saw one, she thought of a murderer's bloodstained hands coming towards her, whether she was looking at the live ones or the dead.

There were too many bodies, she knew. Her victories were keeping her alive, but also cluttering the ground around her. Before long, she really was going to fall, and then it would be over. As it was, she was nearly exhausted.

A monster's legs cut into her from behind as she fought one in front of her; she turned to attack it even as more came. Her lungs burned and she was almost to the point of tears.

_Keep fighting. Just keep fighting._

It was starting to seem futile.

Suddenly, a ripple went through the monsters, and they turned from her. A dying screech rang out somewhere up ahead, and she nearly collapsed in relief. Somehow, someone had heard her. She wasn't alone, anymore.

_Is it Henry?_ she wondered hopefully, trying to see over the crushing press of monsters.

Her rest was short-lived, however. Although the monsters weren't currently focusing on her, she felt guilty leaving her would-be rescuer to face all of them alone. Hope gave her new energy, and she began to fight the ones closest to her.

One of them turned, as if to look at her. It began making a bizarre sort of huffing noise, unlike anything she had heard them do before. She had the most perplexing feeling that it was laughing at her.

Chilled, she attacked it and was glad when it fell. What would cause a monster to laugh, particularly when the tides had turned against them? It was disconcerting.

The monsters seemed to realize that she might still be a threat after all, and more circled around to hit her from behind. She turned, noticing as she did that their ranks were thinning. Whoever was out there was fighting like a madman.

_Did I have to think of it in quite those terms?_

Shaking vague, insubstantial fears from her mind, she turned and fought her attackers. Still exhausted, it took longer than it should have, but at last she had them defeated. From the cries she had heard, many more had also fallen. Something brushed against her, and she almost lashed the chain backwards at it, but she realized that it was human, and therefore had to mean that her rescuer had reached her.

They turned at the same time. Eileen found herself staring into a pair of shocked green eyes that definitely were not Henry's. For a second, she was frozen, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.

Then she shook free of her paralysis and began to hit Walter Sullivan as hard as she could with the chain.

_Daze him so you can run_, she instructed herself numbly.

She was weak from the fighting, however, and she was terrified she couldn't keep it up for long enough. How was it even possible that he was here? _Had_ he come with Henry? Had he done something to Henry? How was he even alive?

As these thoughts shot through her mind, Walter, meanwhile was shouting. It took her a moment to make out what he was saying, and then she almost faltered.

"You're hitting my broken arm! That's my broken arm!"

There was so much pain in his voice that she considered stopping. Then she redoubled her efforts, with uncharacteristic coldness. She had to get away—she couldn't fail due to a misplaced moment of compassion for _him_.

Unfortunately, he reached out with his other hand and grabbed her wrist. Horrified, she yelled and tried to pull free, but his grip was too tight.

"I just saved your life," he said. His voice seemed to break slightly at the start, but then it was so flat as to be almost completely emotionless, and she decided she must have imagined it.

"Why?" she asked, reaching up and quickly switching the chain to her free hand. "So you could kill me yourself?"

He released her without warning, taking a quick step back. Heart pounding, she wondered if she should make a break for it, and then suddenly he had a gun in his hand. Her hopes sank.

Oddly, he seemed to be almost afraid of her. She couldn't imagine that she appeared any less terrified than she was. With the monsters, it had seemed probable that she would die, and she had been afraid. Now, it seemed certain.

Before she could do anything, he turned the gun around and pressed it into her hand. She stared at him, wondering what in the world he was up to, but he neatly avoided her gaze.

"Go ahead," he whispered. "Kill me. I'm alive again, so it will work."

She raised the gun but didn't pull the trigger. It had to be some sort of trick. Even assuming it wasn't, conscience pricked her and she cringed at the thought of killing him in cold blood. She had never killed another human being before. Even when attacking Walter just a few minutes previously, she had felt it was necessary but had gotten no enjoyment out of inflicting pain.

"Where's Henry?" she demanded instead, pointing the gun at him. "Have you hurt him?"

His eyes flicked to hers for a minute, and he seemed to pull back slightly. "The monsters wouldn't have hesitated. You…you _are_ real…"

Walter reached out as though to touch her arm, and she took a quick step out of his reach. Her wrist still seemed to burn from where he had grabbed it. "Yes, I'm real. Stay away from me!"

He turned away and grabbed his head. Then he fell to his knees. A choked sob came from him, and Eileen took another step away. He certainly seemed distracted, and even if he wasn't, she had the gun. She should be able to get away.

"Eileen?"

Henry's disbelieving voice got her attention, and she looked up to see him stepping over the bodies of the fallen monsters. He looked surprisingly unharmed.

"Henry?"

When he reached her, he pulled her into a hug. He seemed alarmingly relaxed with the situation, not even commenting on the formerly dead serial killer just a few feet away. As his arms tightened around her, however, she rested her head on his shoulder, feeling oddly reassured. Whatever was going on, she didn't doubt that he would always protect her. He always had.

"Oh, Eileen," he murmured, still holding her, "I'm so glad to see you. You should have stayed in Ashfield, though. But at least you're safe."

"I was worried about you."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth," he said. He released her slightly to look into her eyes. "I was only trying to protect you. Eileen, I'm really glad to see you. Being here has been…a challenge."

"Henry," she began, glancing over at Walter meaningfully.

He followed her gaze and drew in breath sharply. She felt relieved that he finally had noticed that something was wrong with their situation.

"Walter?" Henry asked, his voice edged with concern. "Are you all right?"

Eileen wondered if he had lost his mind.

xXx

He hadn't realized how much he had been thinking about Eileen, until he had seen her standing there after he had followed the trail of dead Scuttlers while searching for Walter. Now, even knowing she was in as much danger as him by being in Silent Hill, he felt good just having her close by. As a result, it was a couple of minutes before he realized that his plans to slowly work up to a meeting between her and Walter had completely fallen apart.

Neither of them seemed to be taking it well. Eileen, he now realized, was holding a chain in one hand and a gun in the other, and she was staring at him like he was insane. Walter was one step away from being in the fetal position, and he was shuddering and choking.

Henry reluctantly let go of Eileen. "I didn't want you to know about this," he apologized.

He bent and pulled Walter to his feet. "When I saw the broken down door, I didn't know what to think. I wasn't expecting this."

"You know who that _is_, don't you?" Eileen cried, at the same time that Walter grabbed the front of his shirt and said, "Henry, I swear I wouldn't have gone near her if she hadn't been screaming for help. I didn't even know it was Miss Galvin until I reached her!"

"I know," he said, answering both of them at once. He took a deep breath. This was going to be quite a challenge. He thought back to his feelings in the café and exhaled slowly. Finally, he walked back to Eileen and rested his hands on her shoulders. "You trust me, don't you? I won't let anything happen to you."

She glanced away. "I believe you, but…"

He searched for the right words, feeling frustratingly inadequate when it came to this sort of situation. She trusted him, which was a good start, but he was afraid it would take a superhuman effort to get her to extend that trust to Walter. He understood that. That morning, he had felt the exact same way.

"Do you believe in repentance?" he finally asked.

She frowned, as though considering his question while realizing where it was going to lead.

He waited patiently, but looked over when he saw Walter starting to walk past them. "Wait, where are you going?"

"I'm continuing on. _Alone_."

"No! We have to stick together!"

"We do?" Eileen asked.

"We do?" Walter repeated.

He gritted his teeth. "Yes, we do. It's dangerous here. Just look around!" He waved his hands at the piles of monsters. "The Scuttlers could have killed either of you!"

"Scuttlers?" Eileen repeated, sounding confused.

"The monsters…" He blinked. He had called them that for so long, it hadn't occurred to him that no one else would recognize the name. "That's what I think of them as, because of how they walk."

"They look like bloodstained hands to me," she muttered darkly.

"_My_ bloodstained hands," Walter added.

"I won't argue with that."

It was nice that they could agree on things, but he wished it wasn't on things like that. He held out his hands and said, "Look, it doesn't matter what we call them. We'll be safer together."

Walter shook his head slowly, and when he finally spoke, his voice was heavy. "Take Miss Galvin and go home, where you'll be safe…and away from me."

Henry turned to face him. "I don't abandon friends."

Walter and Eileen both stepped back and stared at him, mirroring each other so exactly that he almost burst out laughing. It was only a passing moment of amusement, however, and then his thoughts sobered.

"Yes, I said it," he sighed. "Walter, you're my friend. Eileen, you've got to believe me when I say he's changed. I'm not going to leave either of you alone here, so we have to stick together." He took a deep breath and waited to see if his words had had any effect.

Walter looked at Eileen with a tiny, nervous smile.

She stared at him and then said, "Henry, may I talk to you alone for a minute?"

"Don't go anywhere," he warned Walter, nodding to Eileen.

They climbed over the broken bodies of Scuttlers until they were a good distance away. He glanced up at the sky as they went. Stars were out, but he took no joy from their appearance. They were obscured by the fog that wouldn't let him forget that he was in Silent Hill, any more than the fallen monsters would.

"What's going on?" Eileen finally asked, coming to a stop.

Henry sighed. "You remember the letter I got this morning, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, it was from Walter. He wanted me to come with him to Silent Hill to help him find his mother."

"And you just went with him?" She stared at him incredulously.

"Well, there was a little more to it than that…" He cleared his throat. "The important thing is that after he died, he was given a second chance. A super-cosmic second chance, as he put it." He laughed slightly, thinking about how far away that conversation seemed, even though it had only been that morning. "Anyway, he learned the truth as a result of being dead, and he's repented for what he did. He says he wants to start over and possibly even find redemption."

"You believe him." It wasn't a question, but the tone of her voice and the way she was looking at him made her surprise clear.

"Yes, I do."

"Why?"

"I didn't at first," he admitted. "I just wanted to keep an eye on him, because I didn't know what else I could do. A lot has happened today, though. I've seen him face monsters alone and come out shattered because of the guilt they forced him to remember. We've been in dangerous situations together, and have saved each other's lives. We were forced to be allies, and somehow, we became friends." He sighed. "I won't lie, there are times when I look at him and only see Walter Sullivan the murderer. But in general, I just…I guess I trust him."

He finished in a rush, feeling awkward. He searched Eileen's face, hoping to see some sign that she was at least giving him the benefit of the doubt. It occurred to him that if their positions were reversed, he wouldn't be taking it calmly at all.

"I believe that you believe you know what you're doing."

He smiled faintly. That was better than nothing.

"But Henry…whenever I look at him, I remember him chasing us and trying to kill us. Do you remember how frightening that was? And whenever he…looks at me, or moves towards me…I see him attacking me that day; I feel his hands on me, beating me." She fell silent with a shudder.

Henry flinched. He hadn't wanted her to have to deal with those memories at all, and now they were all being shoved upon her. She looked as though she might cry.

"Eileen," he whispered, putting his arms around her gently. She clung to him, and he thought his heart might break. "You know I'd never let him hurt you again, right? I'd never let _anyone_ hurt you."

"I know." She looked up at him, with a trembling smile on her face. "I'll come with you."

"No, I can't make you—"

She held up a hand silencing him. "I know you could never abandon a friend, Henry. It's one of the things I love about you. I'll come." She gave a shaky laugh. "Maybe I'll even come to see things the way you do."

He hugged her again, touched by her courage. "Thanks. It'll be okay, I promise you."

As soon as they returned, Walter said, "Henry, now _I _would like to speak to you for a minute."

Again, he found himself stepping over dead Scuttlers, this time wondering what in the world was coming. At least he'd had a reasonable idea of what Eileen was going to ask him. He wasn't sure what this was about.

Once they were far enough away, Walter folded his arms. "I'm going on alone."

"Haven't we been through this?"

"You must see that things are different, now that Miss Galvin is here."

"Eileen is all right with coming with us; that's what we were just talking about."

"She's afraid of me," he said. "I can see it in her eyes."

"Well, it _is_ understandable," Henry replied cautiously.

Walter shot him a glare. "Do you think I don't know that? She has good reason to be afraid of me, and that's why I can't travel with her." He glanced down at the ground. "I see her, and then I remember what I did to her. It keeps playing over and over in my head, and I can't make it stop."

He suppressed a groan. That was great. They were both having flashbacks.

"Her screaming…blood on my hands…" His voice was very quiet. "I can't escape the guilt, no matter what I do…"

"You don't seem to have this problem with me," Henry commented, trying to lighten the mood. "No guilt for trying to kill Henry Townshend?"

It was, once again, the wrong thing to say.

"Of course I feel guilty for that too! I had hoped we were beyond that, by now…"

"I know… It was only a joke." He sighed. "Look, maybe—"

"At least you had some idea of what was happening. You were working against me, trying to directly stop my plans. She didn't even know she was in danger. She wasn't expecting anything, when I came to her door. She wasn't even just innocent; she was someone who had been _kind_ to me, Henry. Look at how I repaid her!"

"That's why the three of us traveling together is a good idea!" he cut in. "She'll see your new kindness and goodness, and then she'll know that you've changed and forgive you!"

Silence greeted that. Finally, Walter asked, "Are you joking again?"

"No!"

He didn't say anything.

"Come on," Henry finally said, pulling him back to where Eileen was waiting.

"We have to go north, and then we'll reach the lake," Walter said, beginning to walk as though considering leaving without them.

Henry followed doggedly, with Eileen trailing a little more reluctantly.

"Where are we going, anyway?" she asked.

"The Wish House."

"To find his mother?"

"Yes."

She raised her eyebrows and didn't comment further.

It was a quiet journey, but one that he found nerve-wracking nevertheless. The darkness made it even more difficult to see through the fog, and he kept expecting something to jump out at them. The street they were on seemed devoid of monsters, but in their place was a sort of hollow emptiness that made him feel alone, despite being with two other people.

They weren't the most relaxing of company, either. Walter eventually stopped running ahead of them, but then Henry, walking in the middle, found out what it felt like to be in this peculiar no-man's-land. If Walter drifted a little too close, Eileen would edge away. Oddly enough, the reverse was true—when Eileen took a few tentative steps closer, Walter flinched and shifted away. It was like watching magnetic poles repel each other.

He was about to say something about it, when they turned left on the next road, which was larger and even more desolate. With the night seeming vast and antagonistic, they found themselves walking closer together almost instinctually. Three lonely humans, in a land of nightmares, and the town now gave the impression more than ever that anyone caught alone would be lost forever.

Then, however, Henry had to deal with them shooting nervous looks at each other. He felt like a living barricade between them, especially once he realized that he was quite possibly the only thing keeping Eileen from bolting. She was visibly afraid, but at the same time, he noticed something warily soft in her eyes when she looked at Walter. Some part of her wanted to believe him.

If Walter noticed, he didn't let on. He kept glancing at her with pain-filled eyes when she was looking somewhere else, sometimes moving as though to reach out to her, before giving himself a shake and pulling back his hand. Henry remembered that when all this had started, he had seemed almost desperate to ask for her forgiveness. It had to be even worse now, after all that had happened.

They finally reached the lake, and the small pier for the boat launch. An old, small boat bobbed in the water, paddles lying across it. He stared at it for a moment. It was the only boat in sight, but he would have preferred something that looked sturdier, not to mention bigger.

"Are we all going to take that little boat?" Eileen asked.

"I'll sit between you two," Henry said shortly. That would put him in charge of the oars, which could be problematic since he didn't know how to get to the Wish House from here. He furrowed his brow.

"That wasn't my point. It just doesn't sound safe. People have drowned in this lake, you know."

"Miss Galvin…if you fall overboard, I swear I will dive in and bring you back up."

"With your broken arm?"

"Added penance."

"You would really do that for me?"

"On the condition that you wouldn't attack me until out of danger of drowning."

"I could live with that."

"I'm not sure you could live without it."

Listening to them gave Henry the beginnings of a headache. At least they seemed to be joking a little, but he wished they could have begun a friendly conversation over something other than drowning. It made the prospect of getting into that tiny boat that much less appealing.

"All right, let's get this over with," he sighed.

Getting into the boat was more trouble than it should have been, but eventually they managed. Eileen sat at one end of the boat, glancing anxiously over the side. Henry sat in the middle, with his back to her and the oars in his hands. Walter sat in front of him, ready to give instructions on which way to go.

The boat lurched alarmingly when they freed it from the dock, but after getting a few strokes into the lake, it steadied. Henry forced himself to breathe more calmly. Things were going to be all right after all.

"Turn us a little to the left," Walter said. "Wait, right. No, left! Right! Err…my left, your right."

It was going to be a very long ride.

Out on the lake, the air was cold and bitter. Everything was quiet, with only the sounds of their own breathing and Walter's quiet directions breaking the silence. Before long, the fog had swallowed them completely, and there was no sign of the dock. Henry had the disturbing thought of drifting forever, lost upon the water.

He looked out over the water. There was nothing, but that didn't mean much. He could only see a few feet in any direction. Shivering, he tried to shake off his unease. He wondered what would happen if they never found their way. What if they couldn't even find their way back?

It was a terrifying feeling of isolation he hadn't felt in three years. When he had been locked in Room 302, one of the worst parts was knowing that the safety of the real world was right there, just out of his reach. Cut off from everything, slowly sinking into the Otherworld…those old fears were returning to haunt him here.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. It wasn't the time to think of the Otherworld. It definitely wasn't the time to think of Sharon Blake, and why had the computer felt the need to tell him about that? He took another deep breath as his thoughts threatened to spiral out of control. He was in charge of the boat, and it wouldn't do at all for them to think he was panicking. This was nothing like when he was trapped in the room. It was just a lake.

"Henry!" Eileen cried suddenly, grabbing his shoulder. "There are…_things_ down there!"

A cold chill swept through him, and he peered over the side. The water was calm and clear where it wasn't disrupted by their passage. It also seemed empty. He scanned it, trying to see what she was talking about. Fear rose up in him at the sudden, wild thought that something he couldn't even see was going to attack them, creeping around behind, perhaps…

"There!"

He caught the flurry of motion just as Walter pointed. A pale shape drifted past, and he strained to see what it was as it moved out of sight. He swallowed hard. Could corpses of the drowned be floating beneath them?

Eileen suddenly screamed, and he turned in time to see her hitting the side of the boat with her handbag. Fumbling beside her, she picked up her nightstick and gripped it tightly, looking from side to side.

"What—" he began, and then he saw pale fingers creeping up over the hull. He lifted the oar and hit it, and they slid away.

More clearly, now, he saw one of the creatures slipping away through the water. Looking somewhat like a pale human corpse, they gave him the chills. Trying to see where it had gone, he was alarmed when one's face burst from the water right beside him. It stared at him with white eyes sunken into a bloated, disfigured face. Water dripped as it reached for him, and for a second, one clammy hand brushed his skin.

Yelling in alarm, Henry knocked it away with the oar. Walter was pushing more away with his pipe, and he could hear Eileen shooting the handgun. The boat rocked as more monsters bumped it from behind.

He began to row with renewed effort, wanting to get to land as quickly as possible. Now the fog-shrouded lake was even more threatening, and it was too easy to imagine cold hands dragging them down to the bottom.

"What are these things?" Eileen shouted, as another emerged from the water in an attempt to grab them.

Walter's pipe knocked it back into the water as he whispered, "Memories…"

_Memories of the drowned victims,_ Henry finished silently, but he didn't say anything.

There were subtle differences in their appearances, he realized, arms burning as he tried to get the boat clear of the monsters. If he looked closely, he would probably be able to tell who was who…

He shuddered. The first monsters had barely been recognizable as anything. Now, they were getting clearer and clearer. Forcing his mind away from the horrors around them, he made himself work harder.

After a while, he began to worry that they had gotten lost. Perhaps the initial encounter with the monsters had gotten them turned around, or maybe he just hadn't been paying close enough attention. He thought about how big Toluca Lake appeared on the map. If they were drifting towards the center of it, with their host of attackers…in the fog, it was impossible to tell…

The boat tipped sharply, and he chided himself for not rowing properly. Then he realized it wasn't his fault. The Drowned Victims were gripping the edges of the boat, trying to tilt it over. He thought about the boat capsizing, and those pale fingers digging into him, and he hit the ones closest to him with the oars.

He could hear Eileen fighting furiously to keep them away, but in front of him, Walter seemed to almost be going into a trance. He was still fighting, but slower, with a strange look on his face. It was a familiar look—it was getting very close to how he had looked after going into those strange rooms by himself.

"Are you all right?"

"They want revenge," Walter whispered.

Henry winced. Isolated as they were out here, he could imagine it seeming like a good idea to Walter to just…give up. In fact, he was becoming so exhausted that even his own mind was whispering that it wasn't a bad idea. They might never find the end of the lake, and so he was only prolonging death…

_Eileen._

He twisted his head to look at her. She looked terrified, but grimly determined, as she shot at something in the water. She wasn't giving up, and that meant he couldn't either, if only for her sake.

He kept going, praying that they hadn't been turned around, and that Walter had given him the right directions in the first place. He tried to breathe calmly, even though his heart was pounding in his chest with rising panic. He tried to ignore the ghastly faces emerging all around them.

Then, miraculously, he noticed the water seemed to be getting shallow. He looked over the edge and saw the bottom, and then he looked behind him. He saw trees.

Nearly crying with relief, he got the boat as far as it could go. Then, all three of them got out quickly, dragging the boat with them up onto the land. The monsters pursued, but they wouldn't be able to follow for long.

A cold hand fastened itself around Henry's ankle, and he fell. His heart nearly stopped with horror. After making it through the lake, that one should get him here was the cruelest of ironies.

Eileen turned and shot it, and Walter grabbed him before he hit the ground. Henry found his balance again, and then they made it up out of the monsters' reach. He looked around. He vaguely recognized this area of the forest, even though he had previously seen it in an Otherworld. It was their destination, part of the forest surrounding the Wish House.

"We made it," he gasped. Amazement filled him, and then he fully understood just how hopeless he had felt out there on the water. "We actually made it!"

He felt the sudden, irrepressible urge to laugh and went with it. Fog was still everywhere, and they were still in Silent Hill, but he couldn't help but feel hopeful. They had made it this far, after all, despite everything that had been thrown at them. They were almost at their goal, and then they could go home and be safe. The morning seemed an eternity in the past. He hadn't thought they'd ever make it this far.

"We made it," he said again, giddy with relief, and then, laughing, he hugged Eileen. She looked slightly shell-shocked, but then she, too, began to laugh. The sound made him feel like crying in relief again.

He let her go and looked around for Walter, still brimming with joy. Walter was standing a little bit away, watching them with a torn look on his face. He looked more like someone on the way to the gallows than someone who had just reached his destination.

"At least smile," he encouraged, putting an arm across his shoulders in half a hug. The look on his face made him laugh harder.

Walter gave a tentative smile. "We made it, didn't we?"

"That's the spirit!"

To his surprise, Walter laughed a little bit, too. It wasn't the harsh, maniacal laugh Henry remembered, and he stopped partway through as though unused to making such a genuinely happy sound. Then he started again, seeming almost as giddy as Henry felt.

Eileen seemed almost hysterical, with tears coming to her eyes as she gasped unintelligibly, "Out there, on the boat…I thought…but now…we're here, and…" She shook her head.

Henry smiled at her and then walked away just a little bit to look out at the lake. It looked so calm now. He knew they'd have to cross it again to get back, and the thought made him giggle a little bit.

_I'm not thinking rationally at all, am I?_

Once he thought about it, he knew he wasn't, but he didn't particularly care. It just felt good to be alive.

Generally happy with the world despite his location and circumstances, he turned around just in time to see Walter scoop Eileen into a hug. She let out a shriek of shocked terror and part of Henry's mind shut down.

_He's touching her; he's touching Eileen; that murderous madman has his hands on Eileen again!_

His hand was curled around the revolver before he realized what he was doing. He pulled it out even as he firmly reminded himself that Walter was an ally now, not the man he used to be.

Walter had already let her go, he noticed, as he tried to calm himself down. She was staring at him with wide eyes, and he was stammering.

Henry sighed. Things had seemed to be going so well, too. He walked over and put his arm around Eileen, comfortingly. She collapsed against him, seeming thoroughly shaken.

He glanced up, planning to say something to smooth things over. However, Walter was staring at him, with a hurt expression on his face. Too late, he realized he was still holding the revolver. He put it away quickly, but the damage had been done.

"Let's keep going," Walter said, all emotion gone as though it never had been.

"I…" But he could think of nothing to say, and none of the excuses that came to mind seemed convincing. Instead, he just followed quietly, with Eileen beside him. "He meant no harm," he whispered, noticing that she was still trembling.

She didn't answer. There was a troubled look on her face.

Through the forest they went, walking carefully. Everything seemed very still, as though waiting for them.

Then the trees ahead of them burst into flame.


	18. Chapter 18: The Stones in the Forest

Chapter 18: The Stones in the Forest

The flames blazed, and Henry stepped back, afraid that the entire forest would catch on fire. Then he realized that the trees weren't burning the way they would in a normal fire. Instead, the fire was forming a circle in the space in front of them, like a giant window or portal.

Glancing around, he realized that even the rest of the forest was no longer the place they had walked through. The branches were twisted and bent, with the limbs and trunks taking on a reddish hue. The Otherworld seemed to creep through the underbrush like a pestilence, claiming everything around it.

Before them, the fiery window roared.

"What's happening?" Eileen whispered.

"I don't know." He wondered if Walter had the answers, but if he did, he wasn't sharing them. Instead, he was staring at the fire, and Henry soon saw why.

Within the circle, smoke curled and drifted, and an image was appearing. It was a flickering, fuzzy image of what looked like a man in strange robes. He was facing away from them, but something about him seemed familiar. As Henry tried to figure out why he recognized him, another blurry figure stepped into the image. This one had a gun. He raised it, and shot the first figure in the back of the head. The body fell, and he knelt over it, doing something that was hard to make out.

"One," Walter whispered.

The image flickered with smoke, and then it changed. A new figure was visible now, walking near a series of indistinct buildings. He was holding a book under his arm. Someone else came into view. It was the murderer from the first image. This scene was clearer than the first, and he was starting to take on a familiar silhouette. He crept up to his victim and began to strangle him.

"Oh!" Eileen cried, putting her hand over her mouth. She continued to stare, however, wide-eyed.

Henry found that he couldn't turn away any more than she could, and they watched as this second corpse fell. Again, the assailant knelt over the body…

_Cutting out the heart_, he realized with a shiver. _The Ten Hearts._

"Two," Walter said.

The images continued to come. As they watched each murder, Henry began looking around to see if there was another way to get past. It seemed, however, that the trees had come together so that the fire was blocking the only path. Image after image appeared, presenting them with scene after scene, and he wondered if they were going to just see the Ten Hearts, or all of the victims.

Eileen cried out softly when the children appeared. The images were becoming clearer and clearer, and they could make out details of these two as though they were right in front of them. They looked so young and innocent. It was clear enough now that Walter was very recognizable too. He swung the axe.

"Seven." Walter was watching with a set jaw, standing as stiff as a board. Henry took a glance at his face, but it was unreadable.

When the image blurred and shifted to the other child, he knew he should look away. He almost did, but sounds were coming now, crackling out of the fire. He could hear the little girl screaming as she was dismembered, and he found himself watching again.

"Eight."

With the next two, the sound increased. If they hadn't been so clearly separated from the real world, it would have been as though it was happening right then. With those two finished, however, it meant that the Ten Hearts had all been shown. Perhaps that was it, and they wouldn't have to see any more.

The image changed, and Henry's heart sank. He flinched at Walter's ritualistic suicide, wondering what it must be like to have a memory like that. It looked incredibly painful, ranking up there with some of the worse victim deaths, and a shudder ran through him. This whole thing was just so incredibly horrible…

"Eleven."

On and on they went, until the images began to show people that Henry had met in the Otherworlds. He tried to look away, because he had seen the aftermath and didn't care to see the moments leading up to it. However, he still found himself watching, horribly fascinated. He thought he might be sick.

_Only a few more left_, he reassured himself, as Jasper burned within the scene. He wished he didn't have to hear the screams again. A morbid part of him thought of Walter Sullivan of the past, doing it all for his goal, driven by that warped determination. _How must Walter feel, watching this?_

They kept going, and then finally, Richard Braintree's image fell still. It had been one of the worst to watch, and Henry could feel himself shaking. Eileen was crying softly beside him.

"Nineteen." Walter's voice was hoarse, and he was looking around frantically. The fire was still burning; the way was still blocked. He shook his head a few times and stepped back.

Smoke swirled and the image changed. Henry's stomach flip-flopped. He recognized South Ashfield Heights. He knew what was going to happen next.

"Don't watch," he whispered to Eileen, turning her gently so that she wasn't looking at it.

She stood straight, but when her own screams from the past were heard, her nerve failed. She swallowed hard and huddled against him. He held her protectively, hating that she had to be here for this.

He couldn't help the resurgence of his old hatred for Walter that rose up in him. It was a terrible thing to watch, as he hit her, beating dear Eileen. She tried to fight back, but she was no match for him. His fists pounded into her again and again, until blood was running everywhere… It was the kind of thing Henry could gladly kill him for. He clung to the thought of how things were different now, but in this place, past and present seemed not too far apart.

There was an anguished cry in front of him. The real Walter had dropped to his knees.

His past self continued his bloody work, until his younger form arrived at last. He had come to intervene, and as he spoke, the image flickered and blurred.

Blood roared in Henry's ears, and he missed hearing the count of twenty. The world seemed to be falling out from under him, because he suddenly knew that the terrible scenes weren't going to end there. Another one was coming.

This time, he did turn away. Holding Eileen, he squeezed his eyes shut so that he wouldn't even accidentally see. He didn't want to know what fate Walter had originally planned for him.

He couldn't block out the sounds, however. It was a shocking thing, to hear himself scream. When he recognized his own voice, his mind rebelled against the thought, as though he was mistaken and it was really the voice of a stranger. Why should he be screaming in such a way? What pain would he be feeling, if he were in the place of this…this phantasm, this memory that never was?

_This fantasy?_

His stomach clenched, and he gritted his teeth. It took a good deal of concentration to remind himself that whatever it was, it was all in the past. Things were different now, and Walter certainly did not want to kill him, or torture him, any longer. It didn't mean anything.

"Twenty-one," Walter finally whispered, and only then did Henry have the nerve to look over.

The fire had gone out at last, the trees looking as though they had never been touched. The Otherworld remained, however, all around.

Eileen looked as though she wanted to say something, but she didn't.

They stood there in tense silence for a few moments, and then continued forward without a word.

Despite the differences, and the fact that they were approaching from a different angle, Henry recognized much about the forest as they walked through it. As they neared the spot where the Wish House had once stood, however, things changed. A line of large stones stretched before them, and behind it, the trees had twisted together to block the way. They formed a veritable wall, and when he strained his head, he could see that it went back as well, so there could be no circling around it by going through the rest of the forest.

He stepped over one of the stones to get to the trees. Studying them, he tried to see any cracks that could be exploited. There weren't any, but he noticed the distinct outline of a door in the twisted wood. However, he could find no way to open it. Looking closer, he saw that letters had been burned into the center of the "door."

_Memories did make a world  
__Memories, of each and all  
__Each an item of the one  
__Who left it there, to serve the fall  
__Gather all, then, here and now  
__Dream upon death's sweet call  
__Put each in its proper place  
__And penetrate th'impenetrable wall_

"There are twenty-one stones here," Walter commented quietly.

"Listen to this," Henry said, and he read the verse out loud. Then he turned around to see what they thought.

Walter was standing at the end of the line of stones, frowning at them. Eileen was standing a good distance away from him, looking generally troubled.

"Do either of you have any idea what it means?" he finally asked, when no one said anything. "It's obviously a clue as to how we get past here, but it doesn't mean anything to me."

"21 stones for 21 memories," Walter said. His voice was emotionless to the point of being frightening. "Everyone left behind an item to serve as their memory, helping to build up my Otherworlds."

Henry personally thought that the ghosts of the victims were enough memories for anyone, but he kept it to himself. "Have these items somehow ended up here, in the forest, then?"

"Apparently. From what you read, we need to put them on these stones."

"What are they?"

Walter closed his eyes in thought. "A piece of scripture from the Order, a book on occultism, a camera, a small shovel, a volleyball, another piece of scripture, a shoe, a lock of hair, a screwdriver, a billiard ball…" He paused for a moment. "Next is, err, me…then a marijuana joint, a hat, a picture book, the red diary, a makeup kit, a bottle of chocolate milk, a bloody shirt, and that revolver you've been carrying around, Henry." He stopped again. "Next would be something of Miss Galvin's, probably that handbag, and finally, err, you."

"I'm one of the 21 items?" Henry asked dubiously.

"So am I, don't forget."

"This sounds like the worst scavenger hunt ever," Eileen commented. She actually looked amused.

He didn't see anything funny about it. "It's going to take a long time to find all of these things."

"It'll go quicker if we split up," she said hesitantly.

"Split up?" he repeated.

"If we each search a different part of the forest, it won't take as long. We'll be close enough to each other that we could shout for help if something happened."

"All right," he sighed, seeing the determined look on her face. "It's fine by me."

Walter nodded. Henry half-expected him to make another joke about agreeing only if Eileen wouldn't attack him if he had to help her, but he didn't. He looked distant, as though he were only partially with them. It was worrying.

There was no time to think about it too much, however. The quicker they got started, the quicker they could be done with this.

He wanted to go home.

xXx

Walter walked through the forest alone, wishing he felt as though he were as alone as he was. He knew he was the only person in that area of the woods, and he hadn't seen any sign of monsters around.

The whispering, however, refused to cease.

He no longer heard his own laughter chasing him around the town, and for that, he was glad. Now, however, it was the voices of his victims, all hissing at once. He couldn't tell what they were saying, if they were promising retribution for what he had done, or if they were lingering memories of pleas for mercy.

At least he was away from Eileen Galvin for a while. When he was near her, he kept remembering her bloody, bruised body on the ground, and the way she had run from him later, and after that, his decision to force her to walk to her own death… He remembered staring at the precious doll she had given him and wondering if it was his last link to sanity, and then throwing it aside and confirming his choice, and hearing the voice of his child self and wondering if those words were echoed somewhere still in his own heart…

And the smell of blood, and the sound of her screams, and the breaking of flesh, and the terrible hatred and anger fueling him, coursing through him…

_Stop it!_

Trying to escape his own thoughts, he nearly tripped over something on the ground. He looked down to see what it was and saw the volleyball he had mentioned earlier. It was Rick Albert's contribution to his Otherworlds.

_Rick Albert, owner of the sporting goods store; he didn't know any reason to distrust me, and I hit him over the head with a golf club until he was dead…_

He picked up the volleyball and kept walking. His thoughts threatened to return to their previous blood-filled nature, but he kept that at bay. He had to focus, if he was to find these items. They needed to find the items, so that he could keep going, and then he would finally meet his mother, and everything would be fine once again.

Something moved through the trees up ahead, and he stopped. Was it a monster? He reached for his handgun, but then he remembered that he no longer had it.

_I gave it to Miss Galvin, even though she hurt me, or because she hurt me, because she was afraid of me, and maybe she could just make it all end if I gave her a strong enough weapon…_

He didn't like the way his thoughts were rambling. He had an odd fear that he would fall into them and never return. Then again, perhaps that would be preferable to reality. Here, he had to live with the knowledge of what he had done, and that he would never—could never—be forgiven.

It wasn't a monster ahead of him. It was a ghost. He stopped for a moment to watch it float through the trees. It looked familiar, and then finally he recognized it. It was Jasper Gein, not on fire, but burnt, as his corpse would have looked. Somewhere inside, he knew it was a terrible sight, but his emotions refused to comply.

Walter ignored the ghost and kept walking.

A paper was caught on a branch, and he pulled it free. It was one of the scraps of scripture. He took a look at it. The words were familiar, taking him back to the days of his childhood—terrible days, but so simple when seen nostalgically that he wished he could be that innocent again.

_George Rosten. He taught me everything, and I finally repaid him with death, beating him with an iron pipe._

He looked down at his hands and felt a little dizzy. Was it just his imagination, or was there still blood on them? He wondered whose it was.

Something else was moving through the trees, besides himself and the ghost. He watched it from the corner of his eye as he searched, idly wondering when it was going to make itself known. From the way it was moving, it seemed to be another ghost. How fitting it was, that the spirits of the dead would haunt this twisted, pain-filled forest.

It appeared in front of him after he had bent to see if there was something beneath the rock at his feet. There wasn't, and when he looked up, he found himself staring into the translucent face of Richard Braintree.

He remembered Braintree's death. Terrible, terrible…just another sin on the growing pile, just another scream to haunt him at night.

It was a ghost, and so he stepped through it and continued searching. They could do nothing to him now. He knew he had no hope, except to find his mother and pray that she would still love him.

xXx

Henry was just about ready to have a nervous breakdown. He had found a shoe, a screwdriver, an awful piece of the Order's scripture, and several ghosts that seemed to enjoy following him at a distance.

He knew there were at least three. Two of them had flitted near him on occasion, going through the trees as though they weren't even there. They had drawn close enough for him to wonder who in the world they were, before disappearing again. There was a third ghost somewhere behind him, and it was keeping out of sight.

He was starting to have a bad feeling about the whole thing.

_Why in the world would Walter's mother really be here, behind all of these traps? Something terrible is going to happen._

Even worse than that thought was his lingering memory of the distant look in Walter's eyes just before they had split up. It seemed as though he was drifting further away with each reminder of his past that they encountered. Henry was beginning to regret making them stick together.

Walter had desperately wanted Eileen's forgiveness, hadn't he? It wasn't the sort of thing that could come automatically, and her aversion to him was painfully obvious. Any manner of trust between them would have to come with time, and that was time he was no longer sure they had.

_What am I going to do if something bad happens and he…_

And he what? Lost his mind? Went off the deep end? Lost touch with everything and became a murderer again? Henry couldn't find a good way to finish his worried thought, because they all sounded so harsh.

He saw something at the base of a tree and bent to pick it up. It was the red diary, the journal Joseph Schreiber had used to record his information. He remembered finding the pages three years ago, using the other man's notes to piece together what was happening.

"I sure wish I could talk to you now, Joseph," he sighed.

"About what?" a voice behind him asked.

Henry nearly jumped out of his skin. Turning around, he saw that the third ghost had approached. Although it was staying back in the shadows, the shape and voice both suggested it was, in fact, Joseph.

"It's just that I don't know what to do," he said, not questioning his presence. There really would be no point, not in this town.

"It was different when you started, wasn't it? You knew what it might come to, and you accepted it. But now, you think of him as a friend."

He looked at the ground. "Yeah."

"Walter Sullivan has a harsh test to pass. If he fails, the cycle of darkness and violence can only begin again. Will you have the strength to do what is necessary, if it comes to that?"

"I don't know," he admitted, and then he turned away.

He began walking through the forest again, feeling distressed. It wouldn't go that far, would it? He wouldn't have to kill Walter. He wouldn't even have to think about it. Whatever "test" lay ahead, Walter wouldn't fail it. He couldn't!

The other two ghosts began to drift closer to him again, as though sensing his agitation. He glanced at them nervously, and they giggled. One circled him, while the other hovered off to the side, and then they both darted away. He had the curious impression of children trying to cheer up an adult when they don't know what is wrong.

"Joseph, who are they?" he asked, stopping and turning around. The ghost was still behind him, although he was keeping his distance.

"Those two?" Joseph sounded surprised. "You don't recognize them from the visions?"

"What?"

"They are the spirits of the Locane twins, come down to see what will happen."

Henry looked at them again, as they spun in the sky above him. He did recognize them, now that he thought about it. They bore little resemblance to the unsettling Twin Victim monsters. They noticed him watching, and one of them—_Miriam_, he thought, remembering the name—waved.

"They look…happier than I would have expected," he said.

Joseph chuckled slightly. "That is one thing you and he certainly have in common. You both expect the spirits of the past to be seeking vengeance, confusing them with the distortions found in this town and the previous Otherworlds."

"I don't understand."

"Tell me, Henry, is forgiveness a bad thing?"

"No! It's…it's quite a good thing, I'd say."

"Then why are you against it?"

He frowned. "I'm not against forgiveness."

"Then why do you seem ashamed to have forgiven Walter? You won't even say it out loud."

"Because the things he did were terrible!"

"And so he is unworthy of forgiveness? He is very sorry, you know. He'd pay for them all in his own blood if the thought occurred to him."

Henry shuddered. "Don't give him any ideas. It's just that, if I acknowledge forgiving him, it feels like I'm saying all of the horrible things he did don't matter."

"Of course they matter. You know it, and he knows it, but the past must be let go."

"That's not very easy in a place like this."

"You cannot _ignore_ the past!" Joseph said sharply. "You have to accept it, and then you can move beyond it."

Henry thought about that for a while, standing there in silence. "Thanks," he finally said. He did feel better, if only about his own feelings on the matter.

He resumed his search, and he noticed the two ghosts of the twins watching him from above. He smiled up at them, and although they were distant, he thought he saw them smile back. His fear receded.

For the moment, it was enough.

xXx

Eileen touched the lock of hair she had found. It was so sad, for that little girl to have died at such a young age, and in such a horrible way, too. She swallowed hard, past the lump in her throat. There was too much tragedy here.

She was glad to be alone, or more accurately, away from Walter.

She stopped when she realized just how true that was. It was a troubling situation, and she needed to think about it. As strange as the twisted, unearthly woods were, they felt safer now that he wasn't around. Being able to relax now made her understand how tense she had been earlier.

It wasn't that she really felt in danger from him. Both Henry's word and the way Walter acted reassured her that he really did mean her no harm. Yet every time she saw him, she remembered his attack.

Eileen shuddered and closed her eyes, breathing deeply to push that memory away. It was obvious to her that he remembered it vividly, as well, and his resultant near fear of her added a layer of awkwardness to everything. He was trying so hard not to frighten her, and that made it even more painful.

Henry trusted him, and she trusted Henry, but it didn't form the bridge that Walter might have hoped for. She was afraid of him, she felt sorry for him, and she wished she could extend the forgiveness he was longing for. The combination of those feelings left her feeling confused and tormented.

When he had touched her, she had panicked. She knew he hadn't been going to do anything bad, that he had just gotten carried away with relief and forgotten who he was, but when Walter Sullivan's arms had closed around her, only shock had prevented her from reacting more violently than she did.

For as quick as it had been, it had been quite a gentle hug. A part of her wondered what would have happened if, instead of screaming and pulling away, she had let him hold her for a few seconds. Would some of his pain have been healed, or would it have affected nothing? Would it have gone fine, or would he have hurt her after all?

_Stop it!_ she told herself firmly. _You'll go crazy thinking like this!_

Eileen opened her eyes and forced herself to keep walking, looking around for any of the items that had been mentioned. There, on the ground, were several makeup items. She bent and gathered them together.

When she looked up, a face was looking back at her.

Biting back a scream, she jumped backwards. It was a human face, but she could tell just by looking that it belonged to a ghost. She knew the face now, too, from what had happened earlier.

"Your name was Cynthia, wasn't it?"

The ghost nodded.

She smiled nervously. She wasn't used to dealing with ghosts. "Do you want something?"

"You seemed upset." The ghost's voice, when she spoke, was light and distant, sounding as though it were floating on the air towards her.

"I…" She faltered. _I am terrified of Walter, but a part of me wants to forgive him and help him start over._ She couldn't say that, not to someone he had murdered.

"There is danger ahead. You must be strong."

"Oh…thank you."

Cynthia pointed towards a nearby tree. "There waits something that you will need."

Surprised, Eileen walked to the tree. Wedged into the branches was something, but it wasn't one of the items they had gone looking for. It looked like a plaque, similar to the one she had found earlier. She pulled it free and looked at it.

This one was also engraved, with the word,_ "Forgiver."_

She put it in her handbag and turned back to the ghost. "I'm sorry, but why is that something I'll need?"

"Perhaps you won't. There is always a choice."

"I don't understand." There was a lot she wanted to ask, but she didn't know how to begin. She wanted to know if the malevolent ghost that had haunted the Otherworlds three years ago had really been Cynthia, or if it had only looked like her. She wanted to know why she was here now. More than anything, she wanted to know if she could begin to understand these ambivalent feelings towards Walter.

Cynthia reached out, as though to touch her, but she stopped short. "We all make mistakes. Some, worse than others. You have always been a good person."

"Thank you," Eileen said, a little unnerved by her cryptic statements.

"You have a good heart," she continued, "and I think that everything will work out."

Feeling somewhat reassured, Eileen took a deep breath and prepared to ask one of her questions, but she was suddenly alone. She blinked and looked around for the ghost, but she was nowhere to be seen.

With a sigh of disappointment, she continued searching for the items. After she found the picture book—the pictures were old, but more normal than she had expected in a place like this—as well as the hat and the camera, she decided it was about time to be heading back. She had searched the area pretty well, and she wanted to see what the others had found.

She felt a lot better, despite still not having any answers. Although she didn't know what to do, she felt more confident that she would be able to make the right choices when it came down to it. Still, she wished she could have spoken to Cynthia more.

She looked through the trees carefully as she walked, hoping to see a glimpse of a ghostly figure. When she saw the edge of the wall blocking their path, her heart sank. It looked like she wasn't going to get her questions answered after all. She turned around, giving the area a final search as she backed up into the clearing—and into something warm and alive.

She yelled and dropped everything, spinning around in alarm. It was only Walter, but that was hardly better.

"Oh! I—I'm sorry," she stammered, picking up the fallen items and trying not to bump him again.

"You'll never have need to apologize to me, Miss Galvin," he said softly.

Her hands were shaking almost as badly as her heart was pounding, and she hated that her fear was so visible. "You can call me Eileen," she told him, not daring to look at him.

He didn't answer, but he did move back somewhat. The space made her breathe a little easier, and she finally stood up with everything that she had gathered. She looked at him, wondering if it would be better to leave him alone, or to try to handle the fear.

"Where do these go?" she finally asked.

If he was surprised, it was difficult to tell, because he was studiously avoiding looking at her. "Which ones are they?"

_Look and see for yourself_, she thought, even though she knew that if his gaze was on her for too long, she would feel the beginnings of panic.

"The lock of hair, the makeup, the picture book, the hat, and the camera."

"Eighth stone, sixteenth, fourteenth, thirteenth, and third," he replied almost immediately.

She almost asked how he knew them so easily, but then she remembered that each of the items corresponded to one of his victims. He was being forcibly reminded of them, again and again. As she silently walked over to the stones and set the items down where he had said, she thought about how ridiculous it was that they needed to find these things. Several of the stones already had their items on them, and she knew it must have been terrible for him to find them. She wondered if that was why he seemed so distant.

When she turned around, he was watching her. He quickly looked somewhere else, and she clasped her hands behind her back nervously. She tried to focus on breathing normally. The tension in the air was so thick it could have been cut by a knife.

_Don't think about knives_, she cautioned herself.

"When you see me, do you see a monster?"

It was an unexpected question, and one she knew she couldn't answer. Eileen stared at him. The amount of self-hatred in his voice when he asked was almost as frightening as if it had been directed at her.

For a dizzying moment, she imagined what it would be like to be him—to look back on her own actions and see the evil cruelty of a monster. Henry believed that Walter was seeking redemption, and she had a sudden understanding of what he must be going through.

"I…" She stopped. There was nothing she could say. Even knowing all that, she still feared him, and she was sure he knew.

"You don't even believe I'm telling the truth about myself," he said after a while.

_Yes I do_, she wanted to say, but doubt assailed her. "How can you think your mother is waiting for you in a place like this?" she cried, instead.

He looked directly at her for a second, and then he turned away. "She will be. She has to be." As if talking to himself, he whispered, "I will be with Mother, and she will love me, and then everything will be all right."

_Oh, Walter…_ The desperation in his voice was so clear that her heart nearly broke. For a few, brief moments, she forgot who he was, and saw only how much he was hurting inside. He had to find his mother, because no one else would ever love him—he hadn't said it, but it was as clear as if he had.

But his mother couldn't possibly be waiting here, could she? Whatever happened, it was only going to break his heart, and possibly his mind.

_Don't go!_ she nearly shouted. _Forget this, and come back with us. We'll be with you, and everything will be fine!_

Then the spell was broken, and the words went unsaid, as she stared at Walter Sullivan and remembered who he was.

There was the sound of footsteps, and then Henry had joined them. "I'm the last one back, I see," he said. His voice was light, but she could tell by the way he was glancing between them that he was worried about them being alone together.

"Let's get this over with," Walter said.

Once Henry had put down his items, it was clear that they had found all they needed. He put the revolver on the nineteenth stone, and Eileen set her handbag on the one beside it. Then he and Walter looked at each other.

"I guess we sit on our stones?" Henry suggested.

They did that, and Eileen watched as the twisted trees beyond the stones shook. The outline of the door became clearer, and then it creaked open.

Walter got up and started towards it, and then he stopped. "Is another one of them waiting for me?" he whispered.

She didn't know what he meant by that, but apparently Henry did.

"We're going in together," he said firmly, getting up to stand beside him. "Eileen?"

Her throat was dry. "Yes," she finally managed, running to join him. "I'm coming, too."

Side-by-side, the three of them stepped forward, through the door of trees. Henry was walking stiffly, as though afraid of what lay beyond. Eileen braced herself, knowing that anything might happen.

Yet, nothing did.

Past the doorway, they were in what seemed a much more normal part of the forest. The burned-out hulk of the Wish House Orphanage was just a little ways away. The only thing that seemed out of place was a podium, charred as though it had been through the fire, and strangely sitting in front of the ruins.

Walter walked towards the podium, putting his hand on it. "I used to read from here," he said, sounding far away. There was a piece of paper on it, and he picked it up. "'At the time of fullness, cleanse the world with my rage. Gather forth…'" He let it drop.

_The 21 Sacraments_, Eileen realized, recognizing the words. _The Descent of the Holy Mother. Oh no…_

"Where do we go now?" Henry asked, frowning as he looked around.

Walter was staring at the podium as if in shock, and then he, too, looked around. His gaze seemed frantic, however. "She's not here," he finally whispered. He sounded utterly defeated. "We came all this way…and she's not here."


	19. Chapter 19: Ice

Chapter 19: Ice

"Come on," Henry finally said, once the silence had stretched on too long. "We need to get out of here. Everything will be okay."

Instead of answering, Walter gasped and gripped his head. After a few minutes, he whispered, "Do you…hear that…?"

"Hear what?"

He shook his head and looked up. "No… It was nothing," he said, unconvincingly. He stared off into the forest, as though searching for something unseen.

Henry exchanged a worried look with Eileen. Discovering that his mother wasn't waiting for him after all had been a terrible blow to Walter. After all that had happened, he had been depending on finding her.

"Everything will be okay," he said again, hoping to convince himself as well. They just needed to get out of Silent Hill, and then they all would be fine. He was sure of it.

Around them, the forest had returned to normal. The wall that had blocked their path here had reverted to trees standing straight and tall. Above the canopy of leaves, the night sky could be seen, twinkling with stars. Only the fog creeping between trunks was a visible sign that all was not well.

"Let's go back to Ashfield," he said.

"At night?" Eileen asked. Her voice shook slightly.

He didn't understand at first, until he thought about what crossing the lake would be like. It had been bad enough the first time, and now it was even darker. He almost hadn't gotten into the boat to get here, and that was before he knew about the monsters waiting to drag them down into the lake.

Then they would have to cross through the town, with Scuttlers using every patch of darkness as a place to lie in ambush. There would probably be Shamblers, and Twin Victims, and who knows how many more of the monstrosities he had seen.

Yet, the alternative was spending the night in Silent Hill.

"I haven't seen any monsters in the forest," Eileen commented.

No, he hadn't either. He thought about the ghosts he had encountered, and wondered if they were watching him still. Had they known what was going to happen? He remembered what Joseph had said about the test ahead, and wished he was here to say whether Walter was passing or not.

He grabbed the revolver from the stone he had set it on and passed Eileen her handbag. "I guess we'll have to find a good place to set up camp."

Walter seemed to stir back to life at last. "We're staying here, in the forest?"

"That was the plan."

"I…I know of a place, if it's still there."

Henry nodded, glancing briefly at Eileen for her agreement. "Lead the way, then."

As they followed him through the forest, he thought about what would happen afterwards, when they made it home. He suspected that Walter would need a place to stay—although a trip to the hospital would definitely be in order first. After recovering, however, he would somehow need to settle into a normal life.

"Eileen," he whispered, after thinking about that for a moment, "did the apartment on the floor below us ever get a new tenant?"

"I don't think so," she said warily. "Why?"

He coughed. This wasn't going to be easy. "Well, if we both put in a good word for the person who applied, I'm sure he'd get it, and…"

Her eyebrows nearly flew off of her head.

"Never mind," he said quickly.

She looked sad, but before he could say anything to her about it, Walter stopped walking.

They had reached a dense cluster of trees, and when Henry looked closer, he saw that they had grown together, forming a sheltered grove. The entrance was almost impossible to see until he looked closely, and then he saw the gap. Ducking through it, one would be in a place that was small, but probably big enough for just the three of them.

"I used to hide here, sometimes, when Andrew was in a particularly bad mood."

"Why didn't you ever run away?" Eileen asked.

He looked confused by the question. "Where would I have gone?"

"Anywhere!"

"They would have found me. They always found those who tried," he said quietly.

"What happened to them?"

He didn't answer.

Eileen took a step towards him, reaching out as though to touch him on the arm, but she hesitated. That was enough time for Walter to climb through the gap, away from them for the moment.

She bit her lip and stared after him.

Henry shifted uncomfortably. "He understands why you're afraid of him, you know."

"I know," she whispered. "Henry…am I crazy, for wanting to help him, even though I'm afraid? Even though I can't forget what he did to me?"

"No, I don't think so. It's a part of who you are."

She gave him half a smile. "I'm not sure I should be reassured by that."

He patted her on the shoulder. "Come on."

Climbing into the grove, he helped her in after him. Then he looked around. It was small, and he already felt claustrophobia settling in. Walter was standing off to the side, staring up as though once again listening to something that only he could hear.

"Well," Henry said, searching through his mind for something to do. He took off his backpack and dug through it until he found the remaining sandwiches. They were squished, but still nicely in their plastic bags. "Should we finish these?"

"I'm not hungry," Walter said, sitting down. The look on his face could only be described as brooding.

"Neither am I," Eileen said. She sat down as well, as far from Walter as she could get without making it obvious.

Henry sat down and rubbed his head. It was going to be a long night. He finally ate one of the sandwiches, but it didn't taste very good anymore. His companions were making him nervous.

_Back in no-man's-land_, he thought unhappily.

He stared out at nothing, hoping he'd fall asleep. If that failed, he hoped morning would simply arrive quickly. Then they could be on their way. The question of what to do with Walter still remained, but he decided to worry about that later. First, they had to concentrate on getting out of Silent Hill.

It was obvious fairly quickly that sleep was not going to be possible. Every time he closed his eyes, the memories of what had happened that day crashed in upon him. He just knew that falling asleep would bring nightmares of monsters, or of traps like the shrinking room in the apartments.

Eileen's restless movements weren't helping his sense of peace, either. She kept shifting around where she sat, adjusting and readjusting how she was sitting. Occasionally her head would begin to nod, and then she would shake herself awake again. From time to time, he saw her gaze dart nervously to Walter.

Henry didn't want to worry about them. He didn't want to think about anything but how nice it would be to get back home again. Even more than that, he wanted to be able to relax, to have a dreamless, refreshing sleep.

He rather wished the ghosts would come back. He wondered if any of the others had seen them, but he didn't know how to ask. If they hadn't, he might just sound crazy. The forest seemed empty, now, except for the three of them. The silence outside somehow struck him as threatening.

_Stop it_, he told himself, not liking that thought at all.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, willing everything to leave him alone. He had fallen into a trance-like state, partway between being asleep and awake, when a loud noise shocked him into jumping up.

It was only Walter. He had dropped some sort of ceramic plaques on the floor. Henry blinked at them tiredly, because he remembered having found similar items himself. Then he realized that Walter was walking towards the entrance of the grove, rather quickly.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving."

Henry forced himself to wake up fully. This was bad. He walked over to block the gap in the trees, folding his arms. "What do you mean? We're leaving together, tomorrow!"

"No, we're _not_. You two will be much better off—much safer—without someone like me around."

"You're not getting back to that, are you?" He sighed. "Look, Walter, we can put the past behind us and—"

"She's still afraid of me. I can see it in her eyes."

Henry glanced past him at Eileen, who had gotten to her feet and was watching them worriedly. "You haven't given this enough time…"

Walter's eyes flashed angrily. "There will never _be_ enough time!"

"Yes there will."

"_No_. I cannot change the past, I cannot undo the things I have done, and there can never be forgiveness for someone like me! Now, get out of my way, Henry."

_Calm down, calm down…just because he's a little upset doesn't mean that everything's been shot to Hell._

"What happened to 'the only condition for forgiveness is repentance,' anyway?" he finally asked.

"Who said that?"

"You did!"

"I did?" Walter squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, looking distraught, and then he looked up. "Then I guess I was a bigger fool than I realized." He stepped forward, and before Henry knew what was happening, he had shoved him out of the way and was stepping through the gap.

"Wait!" Henry held up his hand as though that would make him stop. "We'll help you, Walter. Come back with us!"

"_No!_"

As Walter stepped away, Henry realized that something very strange was happening. The trees were becoming slick, freezing over with ice. Tendrils of ice shot out from the edges of the gap, blocking it with a frozen web. All around, the world was changing, undergoing a transformation that he had never seen before.

"What's going on?" Eileen cried, looking around as the trees buckled and cracked under the ice.

"I don't know," he said grimly, as one of the trees fell, "but I don't think we should stay here."

He made a quick check that he had everything, grabbed his backpack, and began to climb over the fallen tree. Eileen started to follow, and then she paused.

"Wait!" she cried, turning back. She ran over to the plaques that Walter had dropped. She picked them up and looked at them for a moment, and then she rejoined him.

They escaped the grove, but the rest of the forest had also been frozen. It was not at all like anything seen in winter, he realized. Ice never did things like this normally. It had just come out of nowhere, and now, it was everywhere. The air seemed too still, and he shivered.

"It's so cold," Eileen whispered.

It was an obvious observation to make, but for some reasons, her words made him feel uneasy.

They had only gone a few feet when he heard the familiar sound of a Scuttler running towards them. He pulled out his spade and crushed the monster, but he didn't relax. The woods were no longer safe.

He could hear more nails clicking against the frozen ground, and he grabbed Eileen's hand and began to run. Running through the frozen trees was eerie, especially with the monsters watching from behind the icy trunks.

Ice glistened all around, and he had the disconcerting feeling that the world he knew was far away. This alien place, cut off from everything, was a place of death.

_Death._ The word resonated unpleasantly with the cold sweeping through him.

He stopped when they reached the edge of the trees. Toluca Lake spread out before them, but it had undergone the same transformation. The surface was a solid sheet, but although it looked thick enough, Henry knew testing it would be a risky and dangerous move.

It was then, staring out at the lake, that he realized what had bothered him so much about the air. The fog was still everywhere, but it seemed wrong. It hung there, not moving even the slightest bit, as though it too were frozen. Yet, he knew it couldn't be, because they had walked through it.

_I don't like this at all._

Eileen reached out and touched one of the frozen branches. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"That wasn't quite what I was thinking," he admitted.

"I'm afraid of this place. But still, it's beautiful."

"It's as though everything has stopped. I feel like we're the only living people in the world, right now."

"The perfect escape," she whispered softly.

"What?"

"Nothing."

They stood there for a few moments in silence, until Henry made up his mind about something that had been bothering him and turned to her. "Eileen, I know I haven't always been the easiest person to be around these past three years. I wanted to forget everything, and I thought I could protect you if you forgot everything, too. I'm sorry."

She put her hand on his arm and smiled. "Oh, Henry, I know you had the best of intentions. Of course I forgive you. I'm sure I could have handled things better, too."

He laughed slightly. "Thanks. You know…I'm glad you're here." It occurred to him that he had just said he was glad she was in this dangerous, monster-filled town, and he started to apologize, but she held up her hand with a wider smile.

"I understand. Thanks."

They stared out at the frozen lake. For the time being, everything was so quiet and peaceful, that he could almost begin to relax. It was a fleeting feeling, however.

"I wonder if he crossed the lake."

Eileen glanced at him, and he hoped it didn't bother her that he was concerned about Walter. "I don't think he would have stayed in the forest," she said.

"Should we go across?"

"We can't stay here forever."

Henry took a deep breath, and then he led the way onto the ice. They walked cautiously, testing each spot before stepping on it. The silence was eerie, broken only by their footsteps and breathing.

A third set of footsteps alerted him to the monster's presence, and he looked in time to see a Chained Man emerging from the fog.

Startled, he hit it with the spade. Although it knocked it to the ground, he lost his balance on the slippery ice, and fell. The monster, not quite dead yet, pulled itself towards him.

Eileen's nightstick cracked down on its head, and it fell still.

"Thanks," he said, cautiously getting to his feet. He put the spade away. Walking on ice was bad enough; fighting on it seemed like an incredibly bad idea.

They continued on, and before long, he heard the clicking steps of an approaching Scuttler. He pulled out his revolver and shot it, but a Chained Man was right behind it.

Abandoning caution, they began to run, or as near as they could get to it on the ice. More Scuttlers and Chained Men appeared, deciding their path as they veered to avoid them.

Henry almost missed the shadowy shape gliding along beside them, until Eileen noticed it and cried out. Alarmed by its sudden appearance, he went to shoot the Specter, but then something caught his eye. Up in the sky, moving impossibly through nothing, he thought he saw a gigantic form of Joseph Schreiber as he had appeared three years ago.

He blinked, and it was gone. He took care of the Specter, and they kept moving.

As elusive as shadows, the Specters joined the chase, gliding around them as they tried not to slip on the ice. He felt that they, of all the monsters, most belonged in a place like this. It seemed ethereal enough to suit such creatures.

He thought he saw a twisted representation of Cynthia Velasquez, walking towards him across the ice, but when he tried to focus on her, she faded away. He lifted one hand to his head, wondering if he was starting to hallucinate, and then he snapped back to the present as a very real Twin Victim came running at him.

Without enough time to safely get out of its path, he shot it until it was dead, and they kept running. Unfortunately, that left him in the process of reloading the revolver when a Shambler lurched out of the fog.

Eileen shrieked, but the monster's unusual gait meant that they left it behind quickly enough.

Still, their adversaries loomed out of the fog, causing them to twist and turn in their attempt to stay away. He had no idea where they were going, and he only hoped they weren't going in circles. He could too easily imagine them circling back to find all the monsters they had passed waiting for them.

_Land, be there somewhere, please be there somewhere up ahead…_

Scuttlers raced across the ice, Chained Men staggered forward, Specters circled ominously, Twin Victims charged, Shamblers lurched, and amidst all of the chaos, he thought he saw, for a moment, something larger up ahead—something that looked like a Twin Victim but was somehow more detailed and more unsettling, and then it was gone as though it never had been there.

The monsters he had struggled not to even look at, due to their too-human appearance, the ones he had only been able to call Victims, stepped out of the fog. They merely watched them pass, and their silent gazes were somehow more unnerving than anything they could have done.

Henry felt his breath starting to come unevenly, because he was thinking about the other things he had been seeing in the fog… and if they were what he thought they were…

_What a terrible thought, that he would have had to face those—oh God._

He saw it, then, a ghostly reminder of the monster he had faced in the basement of the hospital. It was just as terrifying to him now as it was then, and even though it vanished, he felt himself shaking as he tried to keep his footing. The others, then, must have been the things Walter had fought when he went by himself, always returning with a little less hope than he had had before…

Eileen screamed at the same time that he became aware of a strange thumping. He looked at her, saw that her ashen face was pointed towards the ice, and then he looked down.

White hands pounded against the ice, and he remembered the terrible monsters that had attacked them when they crossed in the boat. They were still here, then, caught beneath the ice. He shuddered, horrified.

The fists were pounding harder, and he could nearly image them breaking the ice and dragging their prey down into the freezing water. That, combined with the increasingly close presence of the monsters all around, gave him a burst of speed.

He grabbed Eileen's hand, and they raced away from the Drowned Victims. He knew they were following in the water, but he desperately hoped that land was nearby.

Tears of relief started in his eyes when he saw an island, only to become different sorts of tears when he nearly crashed against the wall of ice. He blinked at it in dismay. The groans and cries of the pursuing monsters jerked him into motion.

He ran to the side, gripping the wall to keep from falling, but he soon worried that it would be no use. The ice towered high, with no end in sight, and he suspected that he could circle the entire island without finding a way in.

"Henry!" Eileen shouted. "There's a door!"

_A door? In the ice?_

He hurried to her as quickly as he could, and saw that it was indeed a door in the ice. There was no clear means to open it, however. It seemed to have been chiseled out of the rest of the wall, and five square panels had been carved down its center.

He glanced back nervously. The monsters were no longer coming, and he wondered if they were just waiting for the right time to strike.

"Look," Eileen whispered, pointing to something on the side of the ice.

Words were there, a darker blue against the chill surface. He leaned close.

_Three went into the dark of night_  
_All of its darkness they would fight_  
_A test or a curse, fall as you fail_  
_Make your mark, and complete the tale_

_Six there were, aligned in a row_  
_Six there were, but five here to show_  
_He who was, with blood and with lore_  
_She, the way she was before_  
_You, in duty, not at all torn_  
_He, as he is, the one now reborn_  
_One remains, though there are two more_  
_End the cycle, or settle the score_

_Hear the silent, screaming voice_  
_Receiver of Wisdom, make the choice_

Henry grimaced at the last line. Of all things, an ominous-sounding verse inscribed in the ice was talking directly to him. It was, apparently, telling him how to open the door, but he wasn't sure what it meant. What was the choice he'd have to make? How would that choice open the door to the island?

He frowned at it, looking from the verse to the indentations in the door.

_Could it be for the plaques?_

He had almost forgotten about the ceramic plaques he had found, but now he took off his backpack and dug around until he found them. He set them on the ice before him, kneeling to look at them.

_Revenger_ and _Protector_.

Eileen's breath caught. She looked through her handbag, pulling out first the two plaques abandoned by Walter and setting them on the ice, and then two more.

_Murderer_ and _Atoner_.

_Victim_ and _Forgiver_.

"Well, this is going to be fun," he muttered sarcastically.

He stood up and looked at the verse again. They had six of them, just like it said, with five places to put them in the ice. He had a feeling that they couldn't just throw them in randomly, either, and "fall as you fail," didn't give him the confidence that they'd have a second chance. That was probably what the monsters were waiting for.

"Let's see… 'He who was, with blood and with lore.'"

Blood and _lore_? He glanced up at the sky, thinking dryly that someone up there hated him and was having a good laugh right about now.

"Could you read the whole thing again?" Eileen asked.

He nodded and did so.

"This is the first one," she said, picking up one of the plaques and handing it to him.

He looked at the _Murderer_ plaque and asked nervously, "Are you sure?"

"It's talking about the three of us. You're 'you,' since the ending addresses you specifically. 'She' has to refer to me, and that means that when it says 'he,' it must mean Walter. The rest of that line sounds like it's referring to murder and the teachings of the Order, so this is the plaque that makes sense."

He accepted her judgment, and put it in the first slot. It went in with a solid sort of click, and he suspected he wouldn't be able to get it out again.

"Next is… 'She, the way she was before.'"

"I was a victim."

He took the plaque from her and put it in the second space. "From what you said, this next line is about me. Duty…not torn…" He thought about what his _duty_ might be, and then he remembered how he had felt when faced with another sheet of ice, during the fight he could have walked away from, in the hospital's basement. "Hand me the _Protector_ plaque."

She did so, and he put it in its place, feeling a bit more comfortable with the way this was working.

"So, 'He, as he is, the one now reborn,' is talking about Walter, but…" He frowned.

"I think we each have two plaques," she said quietly, "and isn't it obvious?"

He glanced at her, and then he picked up the one that said _Atoner_. It fit nicely into the fourth slot, and then there was only one spot left. This, then, was the choice the verse had referred to.

_Revenger_ and _Forgiver_ still sat on the ice.

"Two for each of us?" he asked. "Are you sure?"

Eileen frowned at him. "Why?"

"Well, I found the _Revenger_ plaque, so by your logic, that would be my second one. But that would mean that you are the _Forgiver_, and since I've already forgiven him, I think that one should be mine."

"That's just it—you've already forgiven him. This final plaque is a choice that still has to be made; it's a plaque for the future."

"Oh." He hadn't thought of it that way.

Henry knelt on the ice and stared at the two remaining plaques. It should be an easy decision, he knew. After all, they were just pieces of ceramic. It indicated a choice, but surely it didn't mean that in any sort of realistic sense. It couldn't affect anything.

In this town, though, he didn't want to take any chances.

The other thing that held him back was realizing that Walter might see these at some point. He would know the choice that had been made, even if it didn't mean anything. It would be terrible if he thought that Henry still wanted to take revenge on him, not least because it wasn't true anymore. He remembered his conversation in the forest with Joseph, and quickly shoved it out of his mind.

He grimaced. He wished he hadn't spoken his earlier thoughts out loud. If both plaques were his, he wouldn't have had to hesitate. Now, however, it felt as though he would be making a decision for Eileen—and one he couldn't possibly make after what Walter had done to her.

He could practically feel the_ Murderer_ and _Victim_ plaques weighing down on the other ones. The memories were still so strong, after all this time…

As he looked down at the remaining two, filled with indecision, Eileen knelt beside him. "Go ahead," she whispered, pushing the _Forgiver_ plaque towards him gently.

He took it, but gave her a startled look. "You can…forgive him?"

"I don't know," she said. She turned her face away, but not before he saw the tears shining on her face. "But…we have to try to accept the past."

Henry got up and helped her to her feet, holding the plaque in his other hand. "He really wishes he hadn't done it, you know."

"I know," she whispered.

He put the plaque in the final spot. The icy door shivered, and then it began to melt. The water trickled along the ice, past them, and past the discarded _Revenger_ plaque. Despite the conditions, it didn't freeze. Through the doorway, he could see an unfrozen island, and the edge of a building.

Henry took a deep breath and looked at Eileen. She looked back, putting a brave smile on her face.

"Let's go."

They stepped past the ice, onto the island in the middle of Toluca Lake.


	20. Chapter 20: There Was A Life

_"There was a life, was there before  
But somehow here upon this night, it now means more  
And all those words she tried to say  
I've now forgotten, or they've somehow slipped away  
__And in this darkness, is there salvation?"  
-_Trans-Siberian Orchestra, _There Was a Life_

* * *

Chapter 20: There Was A Life

On the island, the fog swirled around an ominous-looking building. It appeared to be a church, but Henry doubted a church belonging to the Order would be any sort of sanctuary. His first inclination was to pass it by entirely, but he couldn't keep himself from staring at the tall, stone walls and peaked towers. The massive, wooden door, carved with arcane symbols, seemed to beckon him.

"Should we look inside?" he found himself asking.

"He might be inside," Eileen replied, and he couldn't tell if she meant that to be a reason to enter it or avoid it.

He stared at the door, feeling cold. It had to be a church for the Order. He didn't like to think about Walter going back to one of their sacred places. The reading of the scripture had been haunting enough. The cult should be as far behind him as murder.

Yet if he _was_ in there, they couldn't just pass it by.

Henry nodded decisively, and walked over to the door. Despite its size, it opened easily when he pulled. A dry sort of rustling drifted out to meet his ears. Eileen reached out and squeezed his hand, and they stepped through into a vast chamber of woodwork and marble. He froze. Eileen let out a tiny gasp of horror.

There was a conspicuous absence of seats, but the focus of the chamber was meant to be the altar at the front. With paintings on the wall above it, and a generally impressive appearance, it would have naturally drawn and held his attention, if not for the more terrifying sight.

Above the altar, a grotesque monster waited. A spindly body, almost human in appearance, hung at the center, shrouded in decaying skin as though wearing a veil and robes. Its arms were spread wide, and claw-like hands gripped foul ropes of tissue. These tendrils extended over the altar in every direction, covering the width of the room like a spider web created from a mortician's nightmare. Though some seemed to be anchored to the walls, ceiling, and floor, others hung loose. These were thick, curled in a way that suggested muscle and strength, and lined with vicious spikes.

The rustling sound he had noticed earlier was the creature's voice. A gray mouth moved beneath the veil of flesh, and hoarse whispers circled through the air. What it was saying, he could not tell, but just the sound filled him with thoughts of death, despair, and betrayal. It was a voice meant to dishearten and deceive.

Walter knelt before the creature, either in submission or supplication. Henry could not tell which, but either possibility horrified him.

The monster's head jerked, and it looked towards them. "Ah…they have come…" The hoarse voice rose to a volume he could hear, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up at the sound. The voice stopped occasionally, the ends of words trailing into raspy pauses, in a way that gave it a disconcertingly uneven cadence. "The two…the only two who stand in the way of…my son…"

The last two words were said with deep mockery and contempt, and the thing twisted its face in a contorted version of a smile.

Henry growled; his mind was filled with half-formed ideas of what to do to stop this madness before it went any further, but he seemed to be rooted to the spot. Somehow, Walter had encountered this _creature_, and it had convinced him that it was his mother. The notion was ridiculous, but then his thoughts drifted back to screams that only he could hear, and he wondered just what Walter saw before him on the altar.

The monster let out a low hiss. "Speechless, Receiver of Wisdom? Well…we have all the time in the world…neither of you can escape this time, and so…it shall be completed…"

He felt his eyes widen in shock. It couldn't, couldn't possibly mean that it was going to complete the 21 Sacraments. After all of this time, the idea was insane. It was so surreal that he overcame his fear, and he stepped forward with words on his tongue at last.

"I don't know what you are," he shouted across the church, "but whether you are an illusion of the town or a trick of the Order, it doesn't matter. Unhand my friend, and we will all leave peacefully.

"Oh…?"

"Yes." When it made no move, he marched purposely towards the altar, only vaguely aware of Eileen following behind him. At least it didn't look like it was going to attack. There was a chance he could simply grab Walter and leave, dragging him if necessary.

The monster's laughter, sounding almost like a death rattle, was so unexpected that it stopped him in his tracks. "You do realize…Receiver of Wisdom…that he will kill you…?"

"I don't believe you," he said firmly, although he wished Walter would at least look at him. He was still kneeling at the altar, head bowed as though he had no idea that they were in the room.

The creature's face twisted into that sneering smile again. "He would never disobey…his mother… After all, I am…the only one who will still…love him…"

Henry nearly cursed out loud. This was the last thing they needed. If it had convinced him of something like that, then maybe he really would turn his back on them. Would Walter abandon his hopes of redemption in order to gain what he thought was his mother's love? As terrible as it was, the possibility couldn't be ruled out. By the end, he'd had that conviction that he would never be forgiven, and underneath all the various facades, there had always been what Henry now recognized as a desperate need for acceptance and companionship.

His mind began to race through various situations, as he tried to figure out if there was anything he could have done differently. Was it, in some way, his fault that it had come to this? But the past was the past, and there was nothing he could do about that now.

He suddenly realized the terrible danger they were in. At any moment, the creature could give the order, and then Walter would kill both him and Eileen. He stared at the other man's lowered face, wishing he could see anything there that he could appeal to, some hint of what they had faced together in Silent Hill. Yet, there was nothing; his eyes were lifeless and unfeeling.

_He'll do it. He'll kill us._ It was a sobering thought, and he swallowed hard. There had to be a way to avoid this confrontation. He was suddenly very conscious of his own weapons.

_Will you have the strength to do what is necessary?_ Joseph's words rang through his mind again, and he suddenly felt very, very sad. He hadn't known the answer then, but now he did.

He'd do what had to be done.

It felt as though the weight of the entire world was pressing down on him, but Henry carefully reached for his revolver. His fingers closed around the cold metal, and he shuddered. The last thing he had ever wanted to do was kill someone he had come to consider a friend.

The monster's head twitched away from him. "I think…it is time for these obstacles…to be removed…"

Walter stood up. He turned towards them, and in his eyes, Henry saw a sort of defeated determination. Completely crushed, he was going to do what the monster said was his only option. It wasn't malicious—but it left no hope of reasoning with him.

Henry braced himself, steeling his mind for what he had to do.

"No," Eileen whispered, staring between them with a horrified look on her face.

He flinched, wishing very much that she never had come. She could have stayed safely in Ashfield, never having to know about any of this. He half-turned towards her, wanting to say something, anything, to get her to understand.

One minute she was still, looking on with wide eyes, and the next minute she was off as if shot from a cannon. Before he could stop her, she had crossed the distance to the altar and thrown herself against Walter, knocking him back a step.

"Walter, please!" she cried, clinging to him like a drowning man to a life raft. "Don't do this! This thing isn't your mother; it doesn't care about you like we do, and we _do_, Walter! We're here for you, and you don't have to be alone—"

The end of her sentence cut off in a sharp cry, as the monster's loose appendages swung into her. It threw her off of him, knocking her to the ground with enough force that she cried out in pain. She lifted her head, as though to say something else, and the monster smashed her head against the ground.

"No!" Henry shouted, running forward, but the monster pressed her neck to the ground and hissed warningly. Blood welled out from where its spikes were digging into her.

"None of that…Receiver…or this will be a…very slow…death…"

It drew out the word as if enjoying the sound, and he stopped. It tangled her further in its web, pulling at her slightly to indicate how easily it could break her. She looked so fragile, and he cursed himself for anything he might have done to involve her in this.

She was unconscious, but still looked to be in so much pain that he took another step towards them before he could stop himself. The monster pulled, and Eileen's arm came out of its socket with a sickening sound.

"Stay…where you are," it commanded.

"You'll kill her anyway," he said dully, feeling hopeless, "or you'll have him do it. Why should I listen to you?"

"Because you…care, Receiver, and I…will be slow, but if you stay…I will call my…son…"

Again the mocking edge was given to the word, and yet, as if he couldn't hear it at all, Walter approached the monster and Eileen.

Henry felt as though he were trapped in some horrible nightmare. Was this his choice then—to run and attack a monster as it tore Eileen apart in a gruesome death, or to stand helplessly to the side while Walter murdered her quickly? He couldn't imagine a more terrible choice, and he was paralyzed with horror.

"Complete the…Sacraments… Then…all will be well… Kill her…"

Walter pulled out his knife and stared down at Eileen.

xXx

He felt as though he were in a fog thicker than that of Silent Hill, and this one was in his own mind. It was very disconcerting, and he struggled to get to a place where he could actually see what was going on.

Walter remembered running from the forest, fleeing his failed attempts to find a place to be accepted. The world had seemed cold, but that wasn't surprising. It was only what he felt inside. The world would always be a cold, desolate place when there was no love, no forgiveness, and no hope.

When he saw the little church on the island, he ran to it. He had tried to escape the past, and he had failed. The past would always be with him, it seemed, and perhaps it was time to stop running. There was no salvation in this new future he had attempted to create, so perhaps the answers lay in the past, with the Scriptures and the Order.

He had found Mother. She was waiting for him after all. She said that she would love him and be with him always, and she promised to protect him from the people who would hurt him. The only thing he had to do was finally complete the 21 Sacraments, so that they could be together.

He had told her that he didn't want to kill anyone else, but he saw now that it had been a stupid thing to say.

_ "You don't understand, Mother," he said, speaking calmly despite the joy that threatened to overwhelm him._

_ After all this time, he was finally going to be with her again. The voices that had been whispering to him every since he passed the stones in the forest—they were such loud voices, and yet the others hadn't seemed to hear them at all—had finally stopped. No longer did he have to hear reminders of what he had done, or be told that he would never be seen as anything good. No longer did he have chiding voices showing him Eileen's fear, and admonishing him for even dreaming of forgiveness. They had said so many terrible things, mocking him for wanting love and compassion, but now they were finally silent. He had found his mother, and she was the one who could still accept him._

_ "You don't want to be with me?" she asked, sounding hurt. "You know the ritual has to be completed for us to be together."_

_ "I'm not a murderer anymore!" he cried, feeling slightly panicked._

_ "How many people did you kill, again? My dear son, you'll _always_ be a murderer."_

_ The words cut deep. They dug into his heart to meet all of the fear, self-doubt, and guilt that had assailed him since his rebirth, and he hung his head in resignation. A voice deep inside shouted that it didn't make sense that he should have to complete the Sacraments to be with her, his true mother, but it was drowned amidst the self-loathing that filled him. Murderer. That was what Henry and Eileen saw when they looked at him, and he could never change it. They hated him. He understood why. Murderer. He could never escape that._

_ Murderer. It was what he was, and the reason he could never have the love and acceptance that other people seemed to find so easily._

_ "Did I hurt you, son? I didn't mean to. They'll all reject you and fear you, but I won't. Everyone else hates you, and you will only be hurt there, but do not feel sad. I accept you. I love you. Stay with me."_

_ Her words surprised him, and he looked at her. He was that despicable—she herself had admitted it, which confirmed his growing suspicions about himself—and yet she still loved him?_

_ "Then I'll stay with you, Mom," he whispered, feeling dazed. "I'll never leave."_

_ "But you must complete the 21 Sacraments!"_

_ He didn't want to. It felt wrong, to kill again. Yet, if he could never escape being a murderer, perhaps there was no hope in even trying. His victims would hate him no matter what he did, even if he let them live, even if he _helped_ them._

_ And if he did it, he could be with Mother. And she would always love him._

It all ran through his mind again, but he felt confused. They had come to him, the final two he needed to kill to complete the Sacraments, and neither of them had run away. He didn't understand why they hadn't run away.

Mother was whispering now, urging him to kill the one she was holding on the altar. He stared down at the unconscious, bleeding woman and remembered that he knew her. She was the 20th victim, the Mother Reborn—his mind struggled harder to get free of the fog—and her name was Eileen Galvin…Miss Galvin…Eileen…

She had told him that he could call her Eileen, hadn't she? The memory brought a faint smile to his face, but then it faded. This was no time for smiling. He had to kill her.

He stared down at her face, noticing how bloody it was. She had looked like that before, he knew. He remembered hitting her, beating her with such violence that it made him cringe now—but he shouldn't cringe from things like that, because that was like not wanting to be a murderer anymore, and even Mother would say it was useless—and he remembered the fear in her eyes when she looked at him.

Or was the fear from more recently? He couldn't remember; perhaps it was both. She had been so afraid, and he understood why. He had once hoped she would forgive him, and now he hated himself for being such a fool. She hated him, and she always would.

The knife was in his hand, and her throat was exposed to him. There was nothing to stop him from striking now, and Mother was urging him to finish it. Still, he hesitated.

_Eileen…_

He could still feel where she had touched him. She had practically charged him, shocking him beyond words. She had never voluntarily come that close to him before, unless he counted their first meeting, before he was a murderer.

_You'll _always_ be a murderer._

Mother would be able to explain Eileen's actions if he asked, he knew. He could almost hear her answer already. It had probably been a desperate attack, or possibly a futile attempt at tricking him into granting them their lives. And yet…

Yet, it hadn't felt like that at all. She had been warm and gentle in a way that made him feel safe and accepted. For those brief seconds, he had wanted to listen to anything she had to say. He had been shocked to feel her holding onto him like that, and the most startling part was that it hadn't seemed like she was forcing herself to touch him.

She had seemed so genuine.

What had she been shouting? He tried hard to remember, but the words wouldn't quite come to him. It had been important, he knew that. He thought there had been something about him not being alone anymore—as if _she_ was going to accept him and keep him safe…

_Without me having to kill anyone._ The thought crept in, a subtle betrayal of Mother, and he felt ashamed. Still, he felt less sure of himself now, and he frowned at the knife in his hand.

He felt Mother's eyes on him, and he closed his eyes against sudden tears.

No.

No, it was only a fantasy, and she knew it. Whatever Eileen had meant, it couldn't have even been close to that. She would never view him with anything other than hate. He was a monster. Despicable.

Mother knew she was the only person who would ever love him, and now he knew that she was right. All he had to do was kill Eileen, and then Henry, and the ritual would be completed. He would be safe forever.

Safe…and loved.

He took a deep breath and looked again at Eileen. He wished it didn't feel this painful. All the reasons were there before him, and there was no other path…but it felt so _wrong_…

He hadn't wanted to kill anyone ever again.

But he'd always be a murderer.

_ Yes, if you keep killing people!_ a part of his mind screamed at him, battering itself against the rest of his consciousness until he blinked in shocked realization.

He stared at Eileen and wondered how it had come to this. This was what he had fought against from the beginning of this journey. He had wanted to change who he was, even if his past was that of a murderer. Those memories had haunted him, a symbol of what he had to deny.

She had been afraid of him, and _this_ was why. She was afraid of what he had done to her in the past, and afraid he might do it again. He had feared the same thing, and that was why he had come to hate himself so much. And so, he had run from the memories, run from the fear that he could never escape the past…

In running from what he once had been, he had become it again.

Her life was in his hands again. He didn't have to hate himself, he realized suddenly, because he had been trying as hard as he could to be a good person, even if he was Walter Sullivan, and that was what mattered. He hated who he had been, not who he was.

If he killed Eileen Galvin, he would become that Walter he hated so much.

"They'll never forgive you," Mother warned. "They'll never love you."

The words hurt, but he accepted the pain. He didn't doubt what she was saying, but it didn't matter. He could have her love, and all it would take was two murders. But that was wrong. He wasn't going to kill anyone else.

He'd never be loved. He'd never be accepted. No one would ever care about him, and they would always hate and fear him. He'd never feel the warmth of a family or friends that he had yearned for. He'd never be forgiven, never be seen as anything but a murderer, never be able to escape the stigma of his past. He'd be alone, terribly, painfully alone, for the rest of his life.

So be it.

A strange calm descended upon him. He wouldn't commit murder again for something that pretended to be love. He looked up at Mother, and his mind was filled with things he wanted to say. His voice refused to come out, however, and he found himself smiling instead.

_You wouldn't understand._

Something about her seemed to change for a second. He was looking at his lovely, caring mother, but something was wrong. It was as though something ugly was concealed beneath that beautiful exterior.

_You're not my mother._

As soon as he thought it, the change came again. For just a moment, he thought he saw a terrible, dead-looking thing, similar to the monsters in the town, with a terrible web stretched to ensnare him with. Then it vanished, and she was back—human, blonde, smiling kindly, and she whispered softly that of course she was his mother.

He felt cold inside as he looked at her.

_Even if you are my mother…I won't become a murderer for you._

He saw it again, the monster in its web of death, and its voice was no longer loving and feminine. It was a hoarse rattle, beating its way into his head as it screamed its warnings. It reminded him yet again that he would always be alone, that there would never be anyone to care for him if he didn't do this…

The image flickered and returned to normal as he raised the knife in a trembling hand…

"…and I will always be your loving mother, if that is what you want," it finished in her voice, but he could still see the cord of muscle that the monster was using to hold Eileen against the altar…

…and he brought the knife down, as hard as he could, cutting her out of the monster's deathly grip.

It let out a keening wail of pain and rage, as he picked up Eileen. He was surprised at how light she was, and he felt a wave of guilt for his hesitation. He had almost killed her.

He ran, intending to get her as far from the monster as he could, and then he saw Henry. Henry had his spade in his hand, and he sent the backpack sliding across the floor towards him, shouting something about medical supplies. Then he was racing towards the monster.

Walter dropped to his knees by the bag, holding Eileen as carefully as he could. With her unconscious, he could almost imagine that Mother's—no, the monster's—words had been lies after all. He could almost imagine that Eileen cared for him. When she woke up, he knew it would be different, and that made him feel sad.

She hated him and feared him and she would never forgive him. But he knew in his heart, as he found a first-aid kit and opened it up, that he would do whatever it took to save her.

xXx

Eileen regained consciousness slowly, somewhat surprised to be alive. She had been sure death was coming, when the monster had attacked her. Even if its blows didn't kill her outright, it had stopped her from getting through to Walter.

He had looked so…lost.

She hurt everywhere. Her body felt like it was going to be a mass of cuts and bruises when she next looked at it, and her left arm was frightening numb. She could feel and smell that her face was wet with blood. Her head throbbed, sending jolts of pain through her, and she remembered the creature slamming her head down, just before she lost consciousness.

It also burned, and she gradually realized that it was some sort of disinfectant; someone was carefully cleaning a wound on her head.

_Henry?_ she wondered, but she didn't speak.

She could hear the sounds of combat, as well as Henry's voice. He wasn't with her, then. He was fighting the monster, and from the sound of things, distracting it as much as he could to keep its attention away from them. In spite of everything, she found herself wanting to smile, that he would do that for her.

Then her blood ran hot and then icy with horror as it occurred to her that if he was fighting, the one caring for her had to be Walter.

She kept her eyes closed. If she opened them, he would know she was conscious, and then everything would go wrong. She wouldn't be able to hide that she was still afraid, and she wasn't sure what would happen then, since he was carefully tending to her injuries. Besides that, she was, on some level, very tired of dealing with that situation.

They were allies again, she assumed. Allies or not, she couldn't help that a tremor ran through her every time he looked at her. It hurt him, she was sure, but it was impossible not to remember what had happened in the past. Here and now, there didn't have to be that uneasiness between them.

He really didn't mean her any harm. She could tell that just from the gentle way he handled her as he bandaged her wounds. It was nice, she realized, to keep her eyes closed and pretend that they were different people—people who could help each other and _trust_ each other without each of them treading cautiously and flinching away from the other.

After a while, she felt him holding her steady with one hand and wondered what he was going to do. Her arm was pushed back into its socket with a dizzying jolt of pain, and she cried out involuntarily.

Walter froze. Then he put his hand on her shoulder, gently trying to soothe away the pain. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

He suddenly buried his face against her, saying again, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He repeated it over and over again, and she knew he wasn't talking about what had just happened. There was so much pain in his voice that she found her fear being overridden by a near-irrational need to comfort him.

Eileen opened her eyes and looked down at the top of Walter's head. He was still whispering about how sorry he was. She fought back the urge to stroke his hair as though she were his mother, the mother he had never been loved by. She knew he was sorry, but he probably still didn't realize that.

"I know you've repented for everything that happened," she whispered softly. Feeling something more was necessary, she added, "I can't help that sometimes I'm still afraid."

Walter pulled away from her rapidly, apparently realizing at last that she was conscious and aware of him. "I understand."

Something in the sad, lost way he said it made her wonder if he really understood at all. "Thank you for saving my life," she said, hoping that would help matters.

He glanced back at her, looking like he was unable to find the words for what he wanted to say. Instead, he seemed to notice that he was still partially supporting her. "I'm just going to set you down so I can go help Henry," he muttered, glancing away as he put his hands on her back.

She nodded, glad it hadn't been a complete disaster. With time, perhaps things would be different. His hand brushed over one of the slight ridges on her back. With her shirt hiding them, no one would even have noticed, unless they were someone who already knew about the scars she bore.

_The scars that marked me as the 20th victim._

Walter's face drained of color so quickly that she was afraid he was going to faint. He resumed setting her down rather briskly. From his anguished expression, he was going to get away from her as soon as possible.

For those brief minutes, she had seen a future where they _could_ be friends, and she suddenly knew she didn't want to lose that chance. She might never lose the momentary panic she experienced when they were close, but it was already getting better. More importantly, no one should have to go through this sort of guilt and self-hate when they were trying so hard to find redemption.

Moving before he could leave, as well as before she could lose her nerve, Eileen reached up and touched the side of his face. His skin was softer than she had expected. "Walter?"

He turned sharply, almost jerkily, and met her gaze. She realized it was the first time they had really made eye contact since accidentally finding each other in Silent Hill. His gaze was just as intense as it had been three years ago, and she felt the beginnings of panic flutter inside of her.

Yet there was no malice in his eyes, no madness or cruelty. There was only sorrow, pain, and—fear?

Although he seemed incapable of pulling away from her, there was no doubt of what she was seeing. He, Walter Sullivan, was afraid. Either of what she would say, or what she would do, but whichever it was made no difference to the fact that his repentance had given her the power to hurt him.

She knew that another person might have exploited that, striking out cruelly in some fashion or another, but she was not that sort of person. The only difficulty she faced was in finding the strength to say what was necessary. They were three of the most difficult words she had ever said, but staring into his strangely guileless eyes suddenly made it easier.

"I forgive you."

His eyes widened. "How…" But the rest of his question was lost as a shout from Henry got both of their attentions.

Although he had inflicted quite a bit of damage on the monster, hacking it almost entirely free of its web, the remaining strands had tightened around him now. Eileen's heart skipped a beat at the danger he was in.

Walter set her down very quickly and ran to Henry's aid. She couldn't help but smile, because she suddenly felt sure that everything was going to be fine.

xXx

Henry would have bet money that of all the possible things the monster was expecting to happen in the next few minutes—him being crushed in a horrifying death, a wild plea for mercy, a desperate struggle, etc.—being smacked in the back of the head by a pipe was not one of them.

He dropped to the ground as it released him to focus on Walter. He studied it. It was only attached to the wall by a couple of ropes now. The floor was wet with its blood, and it was significantly weaker than it had been. Cutting it down would severely hinder its ability to attack.

He got out his revolver again and raised it, aiming for one of the fleshy tendrils still connected to the building. He shot it several times in succession, and then it came free. The monster hissed and whirled on him.

It lashed out at his face, catching him in one spot. He ignored the pain of the gash and fended it off with his spade. Walter came from the other side, hitting it again with the pipe.

"Thanks!" Henry called.

Walter gave a lopsided grin. "Hey, we're almost brothers, aren't we?"

That surprised him nearly as much as when he had turned on the monster and saved Eileen. Despite everything that had happened, things seemed to be back to normal.

He corrected himself. Things were as normal as they had been since about partway through the afternoon, but it was an acceptable sort of normal.

There was still one cord holding it to the wall. He raised the revolver, but the monster struck his arm. He grimaced, knowing he wouldn't get a clear shot while it was paying attention.

"Distract it," he mouthed silently to Walter.

Walter blinked and then rapped it sharply on the head with the pipe. The entire detached web swung towards it as he dodged and shouted, "See, you and I never finished talking about the whole 21 Sacraments thing. And what's up with pretending to be my mother?"

As he yelled, attacked, and generally made a nuisance of himself, Henry aimed the revolver. Firing quickly, he broke the monster's final hold on the wall.

It screeched and spun, launching its spindly body towards him. He put his gun away as quickly as he could and got out the spade. He was knocked slightly off-balance, but it was facing attack from the other side before it could hurt him.

When the monster focused on Walter, Henry hit it as hard as he could with the spade, throwing it off of him. It let out a long hiss, and he wondered if it had finally realized that it couldn't face the two of them at the same time.

Apparently trying one final gambit, it shook back its veils of decay and stared at Walter. "You forget…that you will ne—"

He lunged towards it, cutting off the rest of its sentence.

They attacked it together, and it wasn't long before the monster lay still. Henry stared down at it for a moment, and then he looked up at Walter. There was a fading shadow of pain in his eyes, and he decided not to ask what the creature had been going to say to him.

He nodded, feeling a sense of finality. "It's over," he said. He knew they were going to be able to get home now.


	21. Chapter 21: A New Beginning

Chapter 21: A New Beginning

"It's over," Henry said again, when no one made any move to leave.

Eileen limped across the church to him. "It really is, isn't it?"

He looked at her. Despite the injuries she had sustained from the monster, she seemed to be holding up pretty well. She was even smiling. He knew they would all have to stop at the hospital, however.

"Oh no," he said, remembering the start of the trek through Silent Hill. "The car we rented broke down."

"I can drive you back," she said. "I'm sure Rich will understand."

He thought about the man they had inadvertently terrified while trying to rent a car. When they'd left, he had been in the process of barricading himself in the shop. He wasn't quite as confident as her that he'd understand. There wasn't anything they could do about it now, however.

"Walter?" he asked. "Are you ready?"

Walter had been staring at the fallen monster, but he turned and looked towards them. He seemed slightly dazed. "Oh…yes."

"Are you okay?"

"…Yes."

Henry grimaced. He was doing it already—putting up that mask of indifference to hide whatever was bothering him. He was surprised to realize it hurt—after all this time, did he still not trust them enough to show weakness?

"All right, what's wrong?"

Walter looked at the ground. "I just really expected I'd find her waiting for me…"

Henry had almost forgotten that, while he had begun to see it as a quest for redemption, the entire trip to Silent Hill was the result of Walter looking for his mother. Instead he had found monsters and nightmares and nearly lost himself in the process. What had caused that phone call he had received? Had it been the first of the town's delusions creeping over him, just like the whispers he had heard later on? It certainly hadn't been his mother.

He opened his mouth to say something, and then stopped when he realized he didn't actually have anything helpful to say. He didn't think Walter would ever be with his mother. She had abandoned him, and she wasn't coming back.

"It's just…I…" Walter dropped to his knees and hung his head. "I'm all alone again."

Eileen walked towards him cautiously. "You're not alone. You have us." When he didn't say anything, she knelt beside him and seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then she wrapped her arms around him.

They both looked rather uncomfortable with the situation, and after Walter tentatively rested his head on Eileen's shoulder, she glanced over and gave Henry a pleading look. He had to hide a grin. They'd get used to each other. Eventually.

Then something occurred to him. "You know, we walked to this island. What if the ice is gone?"

With that in mind, they all gathered their things and hurried outside. The first thing he noticed was that the ice was completely gone. No longer was the island blocked by a wall of ice, but rather, it was clear. Toluca Lake was very unfrozen.

The second thing he noticed was an empty boat stuck in the shallows.

He glanced around, because they were still the only people on the island as far as he could tell. The three of them exchanged glances.

"Are we still questioning anything that happens in this town?" Eileen asked.

Henry shook his head. It was best just to take the boat as a blessing.

The trip back to the shore was quiet and uneventful, a relief after the previous crossings. The fog had lifted somewhat, making it easier to see the way back to the boat launch where they had come from.

The town was still abandoned, but fortunately, this time it was free of monsters, as well. In addition, the roads they walked on were clear and complete, with no chasms to force them to go through the apartments. It seemed like a normal town again…although not quite. Henry glanced around at the empty buildings as they walked past them, wondering what the truth behind it was. Was the town aware of them in some way and had been testing them deliberately, or was what had happened something else entirely?

He thought about the ghosts he had seen in the forest, and it occurred to him that they might not even have been real. They had helped him deal with his worries, but what if they had sprung out of his own mind?

_Was that really Joseph I talked to?_

It was unsettling to think that they might have only been figments of his imagination given form, and he put it out of his mind. It was unlikely that he'd ever find out, and personally, he liked to think that Joseph and the twins had really come to watch over them.

They walked quietly until they reached the car that Eileen had rented. She shivered, as though the sight of it gave her a bad memory. Then she inspected it quickly and opened the door.

"Well, it doesn't look like the monsters did anything to it," she commented, with a nervous laugh.

"Are you well enough to drive?" Henry asked, concerned.

"I think so. If I change my mind, you can always take over."

He nodded, accepting that, although he intended to keep an eye on her while they were driving. It was possible she was still hurt worse than she realized. He clenched his fists at the memory of the monster hitting her head against the ground.

Walter cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable. "So…I'm going with you? I mean, you really want me to go with you?"

Henry sighed. Whatever had happened to him back there with the monster, it seemed to have left him in bad shape psychologically. It had been so different when they started out—with Walter being the one sure they could get along in time, sometimes acting like they were already old friends, and generally treating everything with a more lighthearted air. Now he had fallen to the other end of the spectrum, and that wasn't any better. Something had to be done. Hopefully he hadn't already lost his new sense of humor.

He fixed him with a mock-serious look. "Of course you're coming. Do you really think we'd just let you run loose around the countryside?"

For a moment, Walter looked shocked, but then he smirked. "Oh, shut up, Receiver."

Satisfied that things were back to normal—that word _certainly_ was taking on a wide range of meaning—Henry got into the car.

xXx

When he walked into the waiting room and heard shouting, Henry almost immediately turned around and left. It had only been a week since they arrived back from Silent Hill, and life was already taking on a sense of organized chaos. He was starting to wonder if deciding to talk to the superintendent about the untenanted apartment had been a bad idea, even if Eileen had finally agreed.

When they returned the car to Rich, it had been nearly impossible to explain to him what had happened to the other one. The building had been barricaded to the point of resembling a bunker, and while he had opened the door for Eileen, he had closed it as soon as he noticed Walter.

Eventually they had slipped a note under the door. If he had spent the entire day and night there, for fear of walking outside on his own, it didn't seem likely that he would be coming out any time soon.

Walter's shouted apologies for scaring him had, if anything, had a negative effect.

They had stopped briefly at the café, to apologize for the trouble they had caused _there_, and when that went fine, Henry almost had enough time to stop worrying. Unfortunately, on the way out, they bumped into a couple who stopped and stared, looking aghast.

He hadn't recognized them at all until they began stammering and looking around for a way to escape. Then he realized that they had been the final couple in the café that morning. He remembered quite vividly Walter explaining to them that they had better not leave.

After assuring them that everything was fine, and that no, of course none of them was a homicidal maniac, they had managed to get away. He had been sure the hospital would be a safe place, and it was where they really needed to go.

They hadn't agreed beforehand on a story to explain their injuries. Therefore, it was a confusing mess of adventure that the doctors finally heard. Henry had been working on convincing them of a car crash followed by a dangerous hike, but it soon included wild animals and perilous climbs, and Walter was working his way up to a part with a train before they realized it was getting out of hand and stopped.

Since Henry's injuries were relatively minor, he was allowed to go home at once. He had almost immediately been mobbed by other tenants when he arrived at the apartment. Word had spread fast, and most of them were friends of Eileen's who were concerned about what had happened. He had managed to give them a more concise version of the story, while laughing aside those who were asking about rumors that he and Eileen had been seen with a man who looked suspiciously like a dead murderer.

"A dead murderer?" he had asked, forcing a laugh. "What, do you think he's come back to life?"

They had agreed that it was a ridiculous idea, to his vast relief.

Partway through the week, he had gone to the hospital to visit Eileen and Walter. Things had quieted down, both in the apartment building and in the town, and he expected a normal visit.

Things had been much as he expected when he visited Eileen. He had taken her flowers, reminding himself eerily of the events three years previously. She might have thought about that too, judging by the odd expression on her face for just a moment.

After that everything had been fine. They had enjoyed a few moments of conversation, and in particular, they had gotten the discussion about the empty apartment out of the way. Then, he had gone to see Walter.

In retrospect, he should have started to worry when he realized he could hear voices from partway down the hall. Those voices had become _yelling_ voices, and he had opened the door onto an argument between Walter and a few nurses on whether or not he was irresponsible. They hadn't accepted his insistence that using his broken arm had been necessary, and they hadn't been too fond of his suggestion that it just proved he was a tough person, either.

Henry had stepped in before it could get out of hand. He knew Walter wasn't going to hurt anyone anymore, but he hadn't seemed too opposed to scaring them, either.

"Don't do things like that," he had muttered, once the nurses had left.

Walter had innocently asked, "Things like what?" as though he hadn't just been giving them that too-calm smile and unwavering stare that made him seem like he was a step away from sanity.

Now, Henry was back at the hospital, on the day they were both supposed to be discharged. He hoped the shouting had nothing to do with them, and he knew there was no way he was going to be that lucky.

He sighed and kept walking.

Eileen was already out and waiting for him. She waved. "Henry! It's good you got here! Walter may be a while."

He walked over to her. "Did he do something?" he asked, glancing nervously in the direction of the shouts.

She winced. "Well…"

"What did Walter do?"

"It's hard to say he really did anything _bad_…"

"What did he do?"

"He just gave them his real name, and they found him in the hospital records. They're trying to work out the fact that either he's not who he says he is, he doesn't exist, or he's dead.

Henry groaned. "I'll go see if there's any way I can help."

xXx

"They had no right to tell me that I don't exist."

"It's all right," he sighed. "We'll get it all worked out."

They were walking away from the hospital at last, and Henry couldn't have been more relieved. He had vouched for Walter and managed to get them off his case, but he was sure they hadn't heard the end of it. He wasn't too worried, though. After dealing with a town full of monsters, the legal system didn't seem all that frightening.

He looked around. They had only spent one day in Silent Hill, but it felt good to see a normal town. He knew that mysterious fog and rusty, bloody buildings were going to haunt his nightmares for a long time.

That reminded him of the other matter he had to take care of.

"Walter," he said, "at the apartment where we live, there's a room that hasn't been rented yet. I know that you don't really have a place to stay, and, well, once Eileen and I talk to the superintendent, I'm sure we can…" He trailed off. Walter was shaking his head.

"I can't stay."

"Why not?" he asked, bemused.

"You don't remember?" Walter sighed. "I promised you that once the trip to Silent Hill was over, I'd go somewhere far, far away from here."

Henry stared at him, wondering if he really had lost his mind again. "You don't really expect me to hold you to that, do you? Things are different now. I don't expect you to just…go away."

He looked rather unhappy. "I know what you're saying, but…this is a new beginning for me. Breaking a promise seems like a really poor way of starting out, now doesn't it?"

"It's not breaking a promise if I don't want you to keep it anymore," he argued. "I'm your friend; I've forgiven you…don't you understand?"

"I understand that it would be dishonest, and I don't think I can afford to start doing small dishonest things, because they could grow until I'm doing _real_ dishonest things, and then—"

"Walter, you're acting irrational!"

"I know I'm acting irrational! I'm afraid of what I could become, and I will not break my promise. I'm going somewhere far away!"

Before Henry could argue further, Eileen cut in smoothly, "And once you've returned from your vacation, would you like to move into the apartment?"

Walter blinked and stared at her. Then he looked back at Henry. "You…you never did say how long I had to be gone for, did you?" He smiled. "Why, thank you, Miss Galvin—Eileen. I think I would like to see this apartment."

As they walked together, Henry had to shake his head. He would have never expected to find himself in this situation. Strangely, it seemed like everything was going to be fine. While Walter and Eileen weren't quite relaxed around each other yet, it was close enough that almost no one would notice.

Looking at them, he realized that there was one more thing that had to be said.

"We really went through a lot," he said, thinking about the monsters, the terror, and all of the horrible things that had happened. "I think if, at any time, any of us needs to talk about it… Well, let me put it this way. If either of you needs or wants to talk about what happened, I'll be there for you."

"So will I," Eileen said. "Sometimes people need to talk."

"And me," Walter added. "Perhaps this time there won't be as many nightmares."

Henry wondered, briefly, what sorts of nightmares he had had. He glanced at Walter's face and was relieved to see that he no longer looked quite as haunted as he once had. He did not so much look like a man desperately trying to atone for his crimes, as he did a man who was truly being given a second chance, and a new beginning.

* * *

_Note: Well, we've finally made it to the end! Thank you all for sticking with me this long, and I hope you've enjoyed it! I had a really fun time writing this story, and I hope you had fun reading it. Even if you didn't like it, maybe you had fun disliking it; I don't know. I'd like to thank all of the friends who helped me with this story, whether it was with monster designs—special thanks to my one friend, who helped with the designs for both the Joseph boss and the Eileen boss—or just by patiently listening to me ramble on and on. I also owe a great debt to the Silent Hill Wiki. After a while I simply set up camp there, especially on Walter's page—it acted as a convenient hub to visit all of the victims' pages. And of course, my greatest thanks go out to Konami and everyone who worked on Silent Hill 4.  
And if you've been throwing dismal glances at my my humorous works, never fear! I have at least one idea for another serious story, so keep an eye out for it.  
As always, feedback is appreciated. I want to know what you're thinking, and what you would recommend for the future. Thank you all again, and never forget that the only condition for forgiveness is repentance. _


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